Shrubs scandent, to 5 m tall. Branchlets brownish to grayish brown, terete, initially gray tomentose, glabrescent, with sparse, curved minute prickles. Leaves alternate; simple; petiole 3–5 cm, grayish yellow tomentose, with sparse, curved minute prickles; stipules free, leaflike, brown, broadly to narrowly ovate, 2–3 × 1.5–2 cm, thinly tomentose when young, margin entire or sparsely shallowly thin serrate; blade suborbicular, 11–15 cm in diam., palmately 5-veined, veins prominent abaxially, both surfaces glabrous except soft hairy along veins, base cordate, margin lobed; lobes unevenly sharply serrate, apex acute or obtuse. Inflorescences terminal and axillary, terminal ones narrow panicles, 10–15 cm, many flowered, axillary ones subracemes, shorter; rachis and pedicels grayish yellow tomentose, subglabrescent; bracts in basal part of inflorescence broader, broadly ovate or elliptic, 2–2.8 × 1.5–2 cm, those in apical part of inflorescences narrower, elliptic to broadly linear, 1–1.5 × 0.6–1 cm, thinly tomentose, margin entire, shallowly serrate, or lobed apically. Pedicel 0.8–1.5 cm. Flowers ca. 1 cm in diam. Calyx to 1.4 cm, abaxially densely gray tomentose; sepals usually reflexed in fruit, ovate-lanceolate, 5–8 × 2.5–3.5 mm, margin entire, apex acute to shortly acuminate. Petals white, obovate, shorter than sepals. Stamens many, shorter than petals; filaments broad, complanate, glabrous. Pistils 25–50, slightly longer than stamens, glabrous. Aggregate fruit red, subglobose, not more than 1 cm in diam., glabrous; pyrenes rugulose. Fl. Jun–Jul, fr. Aug–Oct.
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