Gansu, Hebei, Heilongjiang, Nei Mongol, Qinghai, Shaanxi, Shanxi, Xinjiang [Mongolia, Russia].

Herbs perennial, grayish green. Roots terete, much branched. Flowering stems tufted, 2–15 cm tall, together with petioles densely stellate hairy and spreading hirtellous. Radical leaves 15–70 cm including petiole; stipules tinged brown, membranous, stellate hairy and spreading hirtellous; leaf blade 3-foliolate; leaflets usually shortly petiolulate or subsessile, grayish green on both surfaces, obovate-elliptic or rhombic-obovate, 0.8–3 × 0.4–1.5 cm, both surfaces densely stellate hairy and spreading hirtellous, abaxially more densely so on veins, base cuneate, margin obtusely 4–6-serrate on each side, apex obtuse; cauline leaves 1–3; stipules grayish green, linear or linear-lanceolate, herbaceous, abaxially stellate hairy; petiole very short; leaflets resembling those of radical leaves. Inflorescence terminal, cymose, 1–5-flowered. Flowers ca. 1.5 cm in diam.; pedicel 1–2 cm, densely stellate hairy and pilose. Sepals triangular-ovate, apex acute; epicalyx segments elliptic, abaxially densely stellate hairy and pilose, apex obtuse, rarely 2-fid. Petals yellow, obovate, about 2 × as long as sepals, apex emarginate or obtuse. Style subterminal, base papillate; stigma slightly dilated. Achenes subreniform, ca. 1 mm in diam., inconspicuously rugose. Fl. and fr. Apr–Aug.

Potentilla subacaulis Linnaeus.

Meadows on mountain slopes, loess slopes, gravelly slopes; 600--3000 m.