Shrubs 1–1.5 m tall. Branchlets dark brown to purplish brown, slightly angled, pubescent, stipitate glandular, with minute prickles. Leaves simple; petiole 5–11 cm, pubescent, stipitate glandular, with minute prickles; stipules and bracts early caducous; blades ovate-orbicular, 10–17 × 15–20 cm, lateral veins 3 or 4 pairs, prominent abaxially, impressed adaxially, both surfaces pubescent, more densely so along veins, base deeply cordate, margin lobed; lobes triangular, margin irregularly coarsely serrate, apex acute. Inflorescences terminal or sometimes axillary, narrow cymose panicles or subracemes, to 18 cm, densely or sparsely flowered, axillary flowers usually several in clusters; rachis and pedicels pubescent, stipitate glandular, with needle-like prickles or not. Pedicel 1.5–2.5 cm. Calyx abaxially densely gray pubescent, with needle-like prickles or not, stipitate glandular; tube pelviform or shallowly cupular; sepals erect after anthesis, lanceolate or ovate-lanceolate, 8–10(–12) × 4–5(–6) mm, apex caudate; outer sepals apically shallowly 2- or 3-laciniate, inner sepals entire. Aggregate fruit red, subglobose, 1.4–1.8 cm in diam., glabrous, enclosed in persistent calyx. Fl. summer, fr. Sep–Oct.

Bamboo thickets on slopes, forested slopes; below 3500 m. NW Yunnan.