Shrubs to 1.5 m tall. Stems brown-gray. Proximal leaves 2-ternate; leaflets long ovate or ovate, 4.5--8 × 2.5--7 cm, both surfaces glabrous; terminal leaflets deeply 3-lobed, lobes again 2- or 3-lobed; some lateral leaflets 2- or 3-lobed, others entire; all lobes acute at apex. Flowers solitary, terminal, single or (in cultivated plants) double, 10--17 cm wide. Bracts 5, long elliptic, unequal. Sepals 5, green, broadly ovate, unequal. Petals (in single flowers) 5--11, white, pink, red, or red-purple, obovate, 5--8 × 4.2--6 cm, apex irregularly incised. Filaments pink or purple, white distally, ca. 1.3 cm; anthers long ellipsoid, ca. 4 mm. Disc wholly enveloping carpels at anthesis, purple-red, leathery, apex dentate or lobed. Carpels 5, rarely more, densely tomentose. Stigmas red. Follicles oblong, densely brown-yellow tomentose. Fl. Apr--May, fr. Aug. 2n = 10*.

* Cliffs; ca. 300 m. Native in C Anhui and W Henan; widely cultivated in China and elsewhere.