Anemone japonica (Thunberg) Siebold & Zuccarini var. hupehensis Lemoine, Lemoine’s Cat. 170: 42. 1908.

Caudex branched, erect, short, 8--12 × 0.5--0.7 cm, woody. Leaves 3--5; petiole 5--35 cm, densely pubescent, base sheathing; leaf blade ternate, sparsely strigose; petiolules 2--5 cm; central leaflet undivided, ovate or broadly so, 4--10 × 3--10 cm; lateral leaflets similar to central one but smaller. Scape 30--100 (--120) cm, sparsely pubescent; cyme 2- or 3-branched, many flowered. Involucral bracts 3; petiole 2--3 cm, base sheathing; bract blade similar to that of leaves, ternate, 3--7 cm. Pedicel 3--10 cm, pubescent, lateral ones with small, paired bracteoles. Sepals 5 (flowers single) or ca. 20 (flowers double, in cultivated plants), purple, purple-red, pink or white, obovate, 20--30 × 13--20 mm, abaxially velutinous, basal veins 5--9, vein anastomoses more than 10. Stamens 4--6 mm; filament filiform; anther ellipsoid. Pistils more than 180, long stipitate, ca.1.5 mm; ovary velutinous; stigma rectangular. Achene body ovoid, ca. 2 × 1 mm, lanate, hairs 3--4 mm; style straight, short. Fl. Jul--Oct.

Cultivated plants with double flowers (with ca. 20 sepals) have been called Anemone hupehensis var. japonica (Thunberg) Bowles & Stearn (J. Roy. Hort. Soc. 72: 265. 1947; Atragene japonica Thunberg; Anemone hupehensis f. alba W. T. Wang; A. hupehensis var. simplicifolia W. T. Wang; A. japonica (Thunberg) Siebold & Zuccarini (1835), not Houttuyn (1778); A. scabiosa H. Léveillé & Vaniot). They are believed to have been derived from A. hupehensis stock.

* Scrub, grassy slopes, streamsides in hilly regions, sometimes cultivated or becoming naturalized; 400--2600 m. Native in N Guangdong, N Guangxi, Guizhou, W Hubei, Jiangxi, S Shaanxi, Sichuan, Taiwan, Yunnan, and E Zhejiang (Tiantai Shan); cultivated or naturalized (var. japonica) in Anhui, Fujian, Guangdong, Jiangsu, Jiangxi, Yunnan, and Zhejiang.