Shrubs evergreen or semi-evergreen, climbing or scrambling, with long repent branches. Branches robust, glabrous; prickles scattered, curved, to 7 mm, stout, flat, gradually tapering to broad base. Leaves including petiole 5–10 cm; stipules mostly adnate to petiole, free parts auriculate, glabrous, glandular at margin or only at base, apex acuminate; rachis and petiole sparsely shortly prickly and glandular-pubescent; leaflets 5–9, elliptic, ovate, or oblong-ovate, 2–7 × 1.5–3 cm, leathery, both surfaces glabrous, base cuneate or subrounded, margin appressed-serrate, apex acute or acuminate. Flowers solitary, or 2 or 3 and fasciculate, very fragrant, 3–10 cm in diam.; pedicel 2–3 cm, glabrous or glandular-pubescent; bracts 1–3, linear, margin entire or sparsely glandular, apex attenuate. Hypanthium depressed-globose. Sepals 5, lanceolate, abaxially glabrous, adaxially densely villous, margin entire, rarely few pinnately lobed, apex long acuminate, after anthesis reflexed, deciduous. Petals 5, semi-double or double, white or tinged with pink, yellow, or orange, fragrant, obovate, base cuneate, apex emarginate. Styles free, exserted, nearly equaling stamens, pubescent. Hip red, depressed-globose, rarely pyriform, glabrous. Fl. Jun–Sep.

According to Fu (China Plant Red Data Book 1: 556–557. 1992), this is a rare species threatened by habitat loss.

Mixed forests, thickets, scrub on hillsides, pastures, grassy slopes, roadsides; 1400--2700 m. Native in Yunnan; cultivated in Jiangsu, Sichuan, Yunnan, Zhejiang [Myanmar, N Thailand, N Vietnam].