Shrubs small, 1–2 m tall. Branchlets terete, slightly curved, slender; prickles scattered or in pairs below leaves, yellowish, straight, stout. Leaves including petiole 2.2–6 cm; stipules broad, mostly adnate to petiole, free parts ovate, rarely lanceolate, glabrous, margin glandular serrate, apex acuminate; rachis and petiole sparsely glandular-pubescent and shortly prickly; leaflets 5–7, rarely 9, suborbicular, ovate, or obovate, 6–18 × 4–15 mm, abaxially sparsely puberulous along veins or glandular-pubescent, adaxially glabrous, base subrounded, margin doubly serrate, teeth often glandular apically, apex rounded-obtuse or truncate. Flowers solitary or to 5, in corymb, 2–3.5 cm in diam.; pedicel 1.5–2.5 cm, glandular-pubescent; bracts 1–3, at base or middle of pedicel, orbicular or ovate, glabrous, margin glandular serrate, apex apiculate. Hypanthium ovoid, glandular-pubescent. Sepals 5, ovate-lanceolate, abaxially glandular, adaxially puberulous, leaflike, margin entire, sometimes serrate, apex slightly elongate. Petals 5, deep red, broadly obovate, base broadly cuneate, apex emarginate. Styles free, slightly exserted, nearly equaling stamens, densely yellow-white villous. Hip red, ovoid, 9–13 mm in diam., with a short neck at apex, glabrous, with persistent, erect sepals. Fl. May, fr. Jul–Oct.

Two forms may be recognized: f. forrestiana, which has leaflets abaxially eglandular and f. glandulosa T. C. Ku (Bull. Bot. Res., Harbin 10(1): 3. 1990), which has leaflets abaxially glandular pubescent. One of us (Robertson) has seen no specimens of either form.

Scrub; 2400--3000 m. Sichuan, NW Yunnan.