Shrubs climbing. Branchlets purple-brown, slender, glabrous; prickles sparse to scattered, to 2 mm, flat, gradually tapering to a broad base 2–3 × height, often with shortly stipitate glands. Leaves including petiole 7–16 cm; stipules mostly adnate to petiole, free parts lanceolate, both surfaces glabrous, margin glandular-pubescent, apex acuminate; rachis and petioles sparsely pubescent or glabrous, sparsely shortly prickly, shortly stipitate glandular; leaflets 5, sometimes 3, subleathery, oblong to oblong-lanceolate, 4–8 × 1.5–3 cm, both surfaces glabrous, base truncate to rounded, margin serrate, apex acuminate. Flowers 4 to several, in terminal corymbs, 2.5–3.5 cm in diam.; pedicel 2–3 cm, slightly pubescent, shortly stipitate glandular; bracts lanceolate, small. Hypanthium ellipsoid, sparsely pubescent, shortly stipitate glandular. Sepals 5, deciduous, reflexed, lanceolate, shorter than petals, abaxially mostly glabrous, shortly stipitate glandular, adaxially densely pubescent, margin entire or with 2 small lobes, apex acuminate. Petals 5, white or pink, broadly ovate, base cuneate, apex emarginate. Styles connate into a column, slightly longer than stamens, villous or glabrous. Hip red or black, ellipsoid, ca. 1 cm in diam., glabrous, sometimes with a few shortly stipitate glands.

Rosa sambucina var. sambucina is endemic to Japan.

Broad-leaved forests (climbing in the crowns of trees), roadside slopes; 1500--1700 m. Taiwan.