Herbs perennial, 4-12 cm tall, creeping, with few, slender stolons terminated in rosettes. Stems erect, simple, moderately pubescent with appressed, subsessile, forked and trifid trichomes, simple trichomes absent. Basal leaves rosulate, persistent, sessile, oblanceolate to narrowly obovate, 5-10 × 1-2.5 mm, abaxially densely hirsute with coarse, stalked, forked trichomes, adaxially with a mixture of simple and forked trichomes, base attenuate, margin entire, apex obtuse. Cauline leaves 7-15, sessile, oblong to narrowly obovate, 6-12 × 2-4 mm, glabrous or sparsely pilose, sometimes margin ciliate with simple and forked trichomes, base cuneate, not auriculate, margin entire, apex obtuse. Racemes corymbose, 8-10(-12)-flowered, bracteate throughout. Flowering pedicels 4-8 mm, divaricate, glabrous. Sepals ovate, 1.8-2.5 × 1-1.5 mm, ascending, abaxially sparsely pilose with primarily simple trichomes, margin membranous. Petals yellow, broadly obovate to suborbicular, 6-7.5 × 4-6 mm, apex emarginate; claw to 1 mm. Filaments 2-3.5 mm; anthers purplish, oblong, 0.5-0.7 mm. Ovules ca. 4 per ovary. Pistil glabrous; style conical, ca. 1 mm, nearly as long as ovary. Fruits and seeds unknown. Fl. Jun.

Draba serpens, which is known only from the type collection, Handel-Mazzetti 6961 (holotype, B; isotypes, E, W, WU), resembles Coelonema draboides (including Draba stepposa; see above) in many respects, but differs in having slender instead of dilated filament bases. Without mature fruits, however, its generic placement remains doubtful.

Presently treated by Ihsan Al-Shehbaz as Hemilophia serpens (O. E. Schulz) Al-Shehbaz (Edinburgh J. Bot. 59(3): 444. 2002).

* Mountain slopes; 4300-4500 m. Yunnan.