Shrubs 1–3 m tall. Branches purplish brown or dark brown, glabrous, with sparse prickles; flower bearing branchlets short, soft hairy, with minute prickles. Leaves imparipinnate, 7–11-foliolate; petiole 1–3 cm, petiolule of terminal leaflet ca. 1 cm, lateral leaflets subsessile, petiolule and rachis pubescent when young, gradually glabrescent, glabrous or subglabrous, with sparse, small prickles; stipule linear-lanceolate, 5–8 mm, soft hairy; blade of leaflets ovate or ovate-lanceolate, 1–5.5 × 0.8–2.5 cm, usually apical ones larger than basal ones, abaxially soft hairy and with small prickles along veins, adaxially glabrous or sparsely appressed-hairy, base subrounded, sometimes subcuneate on terminal leaflet, margin incised-doubly serrate, occasionally 2- or 3-lobed on terminal leaflet, apex acute, often acuminate on terminal leaflet. Inflorescences 1-flowered, terminal on lateral branchlets, pendent. Pedicel 2.5–6 cm, with soft hairs and sparse, minute prickles, sometimes with intermixed sparse, stipitate glands. Flowers 3–4 cm in diam. Calyx green, tinged red, abaxially pubescent, unarmed, rarely with short needle-like prickles or stipitate glands; tube pelviform; sepals spreading, broadly ovate, 1–1.5 cm × 5–8 mm, apex acuminate or abruptly pointed. Petals white, suborbicular, 1–1.7 cm in diam., longer than or nearly as long as sepals, base shortly clawed and pubescent. Stamens numerous, slightly shorter than petals; filaments whitish, linear, broadened basally. Pistils shorter than stamens; ovary pubescent; styles greenish, glabrous. Aggregate fruit red, oblong; rarely ellipsoid, (0.8–)1.5–2.5 × 1–1.2 cm, sparsely pubescent when young, glabrescent; pyrenes reniform, somewhat reticulate. Fl. Apr–May, fr. Jul–Aug.

The fruit are edible.

Foothills, montane valleys, ravines, slopes, forests, forest margins, thickets, roadsides; 1000--3700 m. Chongqing, Gansu, Henan, Hubei, Qinghai, Shaanxi, Shanxi, Sichuan.