Shrubs erect or sometimes prostrate, usually many branched. Branches covered with reddish brown or gray, peeling bark, villous when young. Stipules broad, thinly membranous, abaxially villous or glabrescent; petiole sericeous or pilose; leaf blade pinnate with 2 pairs of leaflets, rarely 3-foliolate; leaflets oblong, obovate-oblong, or ovate-lanceolate, 0.3–2 × 0.3–1 cm, abaxially ± densely hairy, sometimes sparsely so or glabrescent, adaxially sparsely or rather densely appressed hairy, base cuneate, decurrent and adnate to rachis in apical pair of leaflets, margin entire, flat or often ± revolute, apex usually acute. Inflorescence terminal, laxly racemose or corymbiform, small, 1- to several flowered. Flowers 1–3 cm in diam. Sepals ovate, apex acute to shortly acuminate; epicalyx segments lanceolate to obovate-lanceolate, nearly equaling sepals, sparsely sericeous-villous, apex acute to acuminate. Petals yellow, broadly obovate, nearly equaling sepals, apex rounded. Style sub-basal, clavate, thin proximally, constricted at base of dilated stigma. Achenes brown, subovate, ca. 1.5 mm, abaxially villous. Fl. and fr. Jun–Sep.

Rocks in forests, forest margins, thickets, alpine meadows, dry and grassy mountain slopes, talus slopes; 400--5000 m. Gansu, Hebei, Heilongjiang, Jilin, Liaoning, Nei Mongol, Shaanxi, Shanxi, Sichuan, Xinjiang, Xizang, Yunnan [Asia, Europe, North America].