Herbs perennial. Roots terete, woody. Flowering stems erect, ascending, or low and spreading, 4–45 cm tall, together with petioles pubescent and spreading white sericeous-villous, hairs to 4 mm. Radical leaves 2–20 cm including petiole; stipules brown, submembranous, abaxially white sericeous-villous; leaf blade pinnate with 3–6 pairs of leaflets; leaflets opposite or alternate, at intervals of 3–5 mm, lanceolate or oblong-elliptic, 1–5 × 0.5–2 cm, abaxially canescent tomentose, spreading white sericeous or villous on veins, adaxially appressed pubescent, pilose, or glabrescent, margin revolute, sometimes inconspicuously so, pinnatifid or pinnately parted, apex obtuse or ligulate; segments usually triangular-oblong, triangular-lanceolate, or fasciated oblong, often dilated at base; cauline leaves resembling radical ones but with fewer leaflets; stipules green, herbaceous, margin dentate-lobed or not, apex acuminate. Inflorescence cymose, 3- to many flowered. Flowers 1–1.5 cm in diam.; pedicel 1–2.5 cm, densely pubescent. Sepals triangular-ovate or elliptic, apex acute or acuminate; epicalyx segments lanceolate or oblong-lanceolate, slightly shorter than sepals, markedly dilated in fruit, apex obtuse or acute. Petals yellow, obovate, slightly longer than sepals, apex rounded or emarginate. Style conic, base thickened; stigma slightly dilated. Achenes ovoid or hemispheric, ca. 1 mm in diam., rugose, rarely inconspicuously so. Fl. and fr. Jun–Sep.

Thickets, meadows on mountain slopes, ravines, field margins; below 3500 m. Gansu, Hebei, Heilongjiang, Nei Mongol, Shanxi, Sichuan, Xizang, Yunnan [Mongolia, Russia].