Herbs annual or biennial. Roots fibrous. Flowering stems erect or ascending, 50–100 cm tall, hirsute, villous, or glabrescent. Radical leaves withered at anthesis; stipules brown, membranous, abaxially densely villous; leaf blade 3-foliolate; cauline leaves: stipules green, lanceolate, usually adnate to petiole with adnate part 1–3 × as long as free part, herbaceous, margin entire, apex acuminate; petiole spreading villous and pubescent, sometimes glabrescent; leaf blade 3-foliolate; leaflets green on both surfaces, oblong to ovate-lanceolate, 2–6 × 1–2.5 cm, usually widest at middle, both surfaces pilose, sometimes glabrescent, abaxially hairs denser and spreading on veins, base cuneate, margin acutely many serrate, apex acuminate or caudate-acuminate. Inflorescence terminal, corymbose-cymose, many flowered. Flowers ca. 1 cm in diam.; pedicel slender, 1–2 cm, villous or pubescent. Sepals oblong-ovate, apex acute or acuminate; epicalyx segments lanceolate, nearly equaling sepals at anthesis, longer than sepals in fruit, abaxially pilose, apex acuminate. Petals yellow, obovate, nearly equaling or longer than sepals, apex rounded or emarginate. Style subterminal, base slightly thickened; stigma slightly dilated. Achenes ovoid, smooth. Fl. and fr. Jul–Sep.
Found in mountains all over Japan. Valleys, ravines, meadows, grassland and forest edges at elevations of 1000-2500 metres in China.