Shrubs small. Branchlets arching, reddish brown, terete, with soft hairs and needle-like prickles. Leaves compound, 3-foliolate, sometimes simple at apex of flowering branchlets; petiole 2–3.5 cm, terminal leaflet shortly petiolulate, lateral leaflets subsessile, with soft hairs and needle-like prickles; stipules free, deeply lobed; lobes linear-lanceolate, soft hairy; blade of leaflets 3.5–7 × 2–4.5 cm, lateral veins 5–7 pairs, slightly raised abaxially, terminal one rhombic-ovate, apex shortly acuminate, lateral leaflets ovate or elliptic, apex acute, abaxially pubescent and with needle-like prickles along veins, adaxially sparsely appressed pubescent, base cuneate to rounded, margin unevenly coarsely obtusely serrate. Inflorescences axillary, usually 1-flowered in leaf axils; bracts smaller than stipules, deeply lobed; lobes linear-lanceolate, soft hairy. Pedicel ca. 1 cm, pubescent, with needle-like prickles. Flowers 1–1.5 cm in diam. Calyx purplish brown, abaxially sparsely pubescent; tube abaxially with sparse, needle-like prickles; sepals triangular-lanceolate, apex caudate and with 3 linear lobes, outer sepals sometimes entire. Stamens many; filaments linear or slightly broader basally. Pistils few, shorter than stamens; ovary gray tomentose. Fruit not seen. Fl. Jul–Aug.

Mixed forests, thickets; ca. 2500 m. SE Xizang (Mêdog Xian).