Herbs perennial. Roots numerous. Flowering stems tufted, ascending or spreading, 8–25 cm, together with petioles spreading villous. Radical leaves 5–22 cm including petiole; stipules brown, membranous, abaxially sparsely spreading villous; leaf blade pinnate with 2 or 3(or 4) pairs of leaflets; leaflets at intervals of 0.8–1.5 cm, shortly petiolulate or subsessile, green on both surfaces, obovate, elliptic, or oblong-elliptic, 0.5–7 × 0.4–3 cm, both surfaces appressed pilose, abaxially more densely so on veins, sometimes densely ciliate on teeth, base cuneate or broadly so, margin obtusely or acutely many serrate but entire near base, apex obtuse or acute; cauline leaves: stipules green, ovate, herbaceous, abaxially spreading pilose, margin entire, apex acute; petiole very short or almost absent; leaf blade usually 3-foliolate; leaflets resembling those of radical leaves, or oblong, margin entire proximally, and apex serrate. Inflorescence terminal, laxly corymbose-cymose, many flowered. Flowers 1–1.7 cm in diam.; pedicel slender, 1.5–2 cm, pilose. Sepals triangular-ovate, apex acute to acuminate; epicalyx segments oblong-lanceolate, slightly shorter than sepals, apex acute. Petals yellow, obovate, apex rounded or emarginate. Style subterminal, thin at base, thickened distally. Mature achenes subreniform, ca. 1 mm in diam., rugose. Fl. Apr–Jun, fr. Jun–Aug.
Sunny slopes and waste ground in lowland and mountains all over Japan. Bank of field, ditches, meadows, thickets and thinned forest at elevations of 350-2400 metres in northern China.