A straggling sub-evergreen shrub, with slender, four-angled stems viscous when young, and armed with short decurved spines. Leaves glossy green on both surfaces, simple, sometimes three-, or obscurely five-lobed, sometimes merely wavy; broadly ovate or triangular, 3 to 5 in. long, nearly as much wide at the heart-shaped base, toothed, slightly downy on the veins above, more so beneath; stalk 1 to 2 in. long; stipules 1⁄3 in. long, with usually five linear lobes. Flowers white, 1⁄3 in. across, produced in a terminal panicle 3 to 5 in. long, calyx segments downy, ovate-lanceolate. Fruits red, small.
Native of Central China; introduced by Wilson in 1907. It is a luxuriant, very leafy, scandent shrub, suitable for planting as a rough group in thin woodland.
var. glaber Hemsl. R. hakonensis Franch. & Sav.; R. lambertianus subsp. hakonensis (Franch. & Sav.) Focke; R. lambertianus var. hakonensis (Franch. & Sav.) Rehd. – Similar in habit to the above, stems round and like the leaves glabrous or nearly so. Fruits yellow. Native of Japan as well as China; introduced from the latter country by Wilson in 1907.