Shrubs low, prostrate, or often erect, 0.3–1.5 m tall, much branched. Branchlets gray or grayish brown, canescent pilose or sericeous when young, with peeling bark when old. Stipules brown or paler, membranous, sparsely pilose, margin entire; leaf blade pinnate with 2 or 3 pairs of leaflets; basal 2 pairs usually palmately arranged or appearing whorled; leaflets small, lanceolate, linear-lanceolate, or obovate-lanceolate, 5–10 × 2–5 mm, abaxially sericeous, white tomentose, or pilose, adaxially sericeous, base cuneate, margin entire, usually strongly revolute, apex usually acuminate, rarely obtuse. Inflorescence terminal, a few-flowered raceme or a solitary flower. Flowers 1.2–2.2 cm in diam.; pedicel grayish white or sericeous-pilose. Sepals ovate, apex acute; epicalyx segments lanceolate, ovate-lanceolate, or obovate-lanceolate, slightly shorter than or equaling sepals, abaxially sericeous or pilose, apex acute or acuminate. Petals yellow, broadly obovate, 1–2 × as long as sepals, apex emarginate or rounded. Style sub-basal, clavate, thin at base, constricted at base of dilated stigma. Achenes hairy. Fl. and fr. Apr.–Sep.

Forests, forest margins, thickets on mountain slopes, rock crevices, steppes; 900--5000 m. Gansu, Heilongjiang, Nei Mongol, Qinghai, Sichuan, Xizang, Yunnan [Mongolia, Russia].