Rubus polytrichus Franchet (1890), not Progel (1882).

Shrubs low, to 50 cm tall, with creeping branches. Branchlets brown to grayish brown, terete, tomentose, yellowish brown bristly or with intermixed stipitate glands. Leaves simple; petiole 1.5–3 cm, tomentose, bristly, or stipitate glandular; stipules persistent, free, ovate-lanceolate or narrowly ovate, 1–1.6 cm × 5–9 mm, abaxially tomentose, bristly, shallowly pinnate-laciniate; blade ovate to suborbicular, 3–6 × 3–5.5 cm, veins raised abaxially, abaxially densely yellowish white tomentose, yellowish brown bristly along veins, adaxially glabrous, base cordate, margin 3–5-lobed, sharply doubly serrulate, apex acute. Inflorescences terminal, short subracemes, 3–5 cm, several flowered, or flowers solitary in leaf axils; bracts ovate-lanceolate or narrowly ovate, 0.8–1.5 cm × 4–8 mm, tomentose when young, bristly, laciniate. Pedicel 5–10 mm. Flowers 1–2 cm in diam. Calyx abaxially tomentose, bristly or stipitate glandular; sepals erect at anthesis, later enclosing fruit, lanceolate, 0.9–1.4 cm × 3.5–6 mm, apex acuminate, outer sepals usually laciniate apically, inner sepals entire. Petals white, broadly ovate to oblong, 7–11 × 5–8 mm, abaxially sparsely tomentose, base shortly clawed. Stamens many, shorter than petals; filaments broad, complanate. Pistils slightly shorter than or nearly as long as stamens; ovary glabrous. Aggregate fruit subglobose, glabrous, with many drupelets and persistent styles; pyrenes slightly rugose. Fl. Jun–Jul, fr. Aug–Sep.

Montane forests and valleys, grasslands, roadsides, near water courses; 2200--3000 m. NW Yunnan.