Vines woody, turning black on drying. Branches shallowly 4--8-grooved, sparsely puberulous. Leaves 1- or 2-pinnate; petiole 1.4--4.5 cm; leaflet blades ovate, narrowly so, elliptic, oblong, lanceolate, narrowly so, or linear, undivided or 2- or 3-fid, 1.4--6 × 0.2--2.8 cm, leathery, both surfaces very sparsely puberulous on veins or subglabrous and conspicuously reticulate, base rounded or cuneate, margin entire, apex obtuse, acute, attenuate, acuminate, or sometimes emarginate; basal veins prominent. Cymes both axillary and terminal, (1--)3- to many flowered; peduncle 0.9--6.7 cm; bracts sessile or petiolate, triangular, elliptic, or linear, 0.1--1.1 cm. Flowers 1.4--3 cm in diam.; pedicel 1--2.5 cm, puberulous. Sepals 4(--6), white, obovate-oblong, 0.7--1.5 × 0.35--0.7 cm, abaxially appressed puberulous, adaxially glabrous, margin velutinous, apex subtruncate. Stamens 4--6(--7) mm, glabrous; anthers narrowly oblong, 2--3 mm, apex obtuse. Ovaries puberulous; style 3--5 mm, densely villous. Achenes strongly compressed, elliptic, 4--5 × 3--3.8 mm, pubescent, conspicuously marginate; persistent style ca. 1.8 cm, plumose. Fl. Apr--Aug, fr. Aug--Oct.

* Thickets, scrub, slopes; 100--1700 m. N Anhui, W Hebei, Henan, W Hubei, N Jiangsu, S Shaanxi, Shandong, SE Shanxi.