Subshrubs or perennial herbs, 30--100 cm tall. Stems usually branched; branches 6--10-grooved, appressed puberulous, glabrescent. Leaves ternate; petiole 2.5--14 cm, puberulous; leaflet blades broadly ovate, pentagonal, suborbicular, elliptic, or ovate, 2.5--16 × 2.5--14 cm, papery, often 3-lobed, both surfaces appressed puberulous, glabrescent, abaxially often reticulate, base truncate, rounded, or broadly cuneate, margin incised to dentate, apex short acuminate to acute; basal veins abaxially prominent. Compound cymes terminal or axillary, 7-to many flowered, often paniclelike; peduncle 4--8 cm, densely puberulous; bracts petiolate, pentagonal to broadly ovate, 1--3.5 cm, 3-parted or-sect. Flowers polygamous, ca. 1.5 cm in diam. Pedicel 0.8--3.5 cm, densely puberulous to velutinous. Sepals 4, blue to purple, erect, narrowly oblong to spatulate-oblong, 1.5--2.4 × 0.3--0.7 cm, slightly widened toward apex, abaxially densely appressed sericeous-puberulous to velutinous, adaxially glabrous, apex obtuse and recurved. Stamens 0.9--1.1 cm; filaments apically with a few short hairs; anthers linear, 3.2--5 mm, abaxially pilose on connective, apex with a 0.2--0.5 mm apicula. Ovaries puberulous. Style 3--4 mm, densely villous. Achenes elliptic, 3--5 × 2--2.8 mm, puberulous; persistent style ca. 2.5 cm, plumose. Fl. Aug--Sep, fr. Oct.
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