Shrubs scandent. Branchlets brown or dark purplish brown, terete, yellowish villous, with sparse, stipitate glandular hairs and sparse, curved prickles. Leaves simple; petiole 6–8 mm, yellowish villous, sparsely stipitate glandular; stipules caducous, free, deeply palmately divided nearly to base, lobes linear, villous, stipitate glandular; blade lanceolate or oblong-lanceolate, 7–12 × 2–4.5 cm, veins 6–8 pairs, slightly raised abaxially, papery, abaxially gray tomentose and with yellowish long hairs along veins, sometimes glabrescent, adaxially pubescent only along veins, base rounded to shallowly cordate, margin irregularly serrate, apex acuminate. Inflorescences terminal or axillary, cymose panicles, large, lax, many flowered; rachis and pedicels yellowish villous, stipitate glandular; bracts smaller than stipules, sparsely villous, with stalked glands. Pedicels unequal in length, longer ones to 2 cm, shorter ones 6–7 mm. Flowers not more than 1 cm in diam. Calyx purplish red, yellowish villous, with stalked glands; sepals erect in fruit, ovate-lanceolate, 5–7 × 3–5 mm, margin entire, apex caudate. Petals absent. Stamens many; filaments linear. Pistils few, longer than stamens; style and ovary glabrous. Aggregate fruit black, small, glabrous, with few drupelets, enclosed in calyx; pyrenes rugose. Fl. Apr–May, fr. Jul–Aug.

Stream sides, roadsides, rockslides, montane valleys, forest margins; 600--700 m. S Fujian, E Guangdong.