Description from
Flora of China
Shrubs 1–2 m tall. Branchlets reddish brown or purplish brown to purplish black, cylindric, glabrous, with ± slender prickles, without stalked glands. Leaves imparipinnate, usually 3-foliolate; petiole 4–7 cm, petiolule of terminal leaflet 1.5–3 cm, lateral leaflets subsessile, glabrous or pilose, rarely with sparse, stalked glands, with ± slender prickles; stipules linear or linear-lanceolate, 7–9 mm, glabrous; blade of leaflets 4–10 × 2.5–6 cm, terminal one ovate to ovate-lanceolate, base rounded to shallowly cordate, lateral leaflets ovate or elliptic, base broadly cuneate to rounded, abaxially densely gray tomentose, with sparse, slender prickles along veins, adaxially pilose, margin coarsely incised-doubly serrate or irregularly sharply serrate, apex acute to shortly acuminate. Inflorescences terminal or axillary, corymbose, 3–4(–5) cm, 3- or 4-flowered, sometimes flowers solitary in leaf axils; rachis and pedicels glabrous, with ± slender prickles, without stalked glands; bracts linear, 5–7 mm, glabrous. Pedicel 1–2.5 cm. Flowers 1.5–2 cm in diam. Calyx abaxially usually glabrous, with needle-like prickles, occasionally with sparse, stalked glands; sepals erect, rarely reflexed in fruit, lanceolate or ovate-lanceolate, 1–1.5 cm × 3–5 mm, often tomentose at margin, caudate. Petals pink, elliptic or obovate, shorter than sepals, puberulous. Stamens numerous in 1 whorl, shorter than petals; filaments linear. Pistils many, slightly shorter than stamens; ovary pilose. Aggregate fruit red, subglobose, 1–1.5 cm in diam., glabrous at maturity; pyrenes densely rugulose. Fl. Jul–Aug, fr. Sep–Oct.
Rocky slopes, thickets, mixed forests; 3000--3800 m. NW Yunnan.