Plants 15--100 cm tall, pubescent or glabrous. Stems branched or simple. Basal and proximal cauline leaves withered at anthesis. Distal cauline leaves shortly petiolate; stipules membranous; leaf blade 3-pinnate, 5.5--12 cm; leaflet blade rhombic, broadly ovate, or ovate, 4--15 × 3.5--15 mm, herbaceous, base rounded-cuneate, rounded, or subcordate, apex obtuse or acute, 3-lobed; lobes entire or few toothed; veins slightly raised abaxially, pubescent or glandular hairy. Inflorescence paniculate, several or many flowered. Pedicel slender, 5--15 mm. Sepals 5, yellow, tinged greenish, ovate, 2.5--4 × ca. 1.5 mm, pubescent abaxially. Filament base filiform, apex narrowly linear; anther 2.5--3.5 mm, apex mucronate. Carpels 4--8; stigma triangular winged. Achenes sessile; body hemiobovoid, laterally compressed, 3--5 mm, pubescent. Fl. May--Jul.

This species is similar to Thalictrum cultratum, but differs in having stigmas triangular and achenes strongly compressed and pubescent.

Slopes, grasslands, damp rocky ledges; 900--4500 m. Gansu, Hebei, Nei Mongol, Qinghai, Shaanxi, Shanxi, Sichuan, Xinjiang, Xizang [widely distributed in Asia and Europe].