Plants from slender, creeping rhizome. Stems simple, 1-2 dm, glabrous, nodes coarsely fringed-ciliate. Leaves 3-5.5 × 1.5-2 cm; blade ovate-lanceolate to oblong-lanceolate, base rounded, apex acute to acuminate; peduncle bearing 1 flower per axil, 5-10 mm including pedicel, entire structure slender. Flowers 1-5; perianth rotate; tepals recurved at tips, wine-colored with yellowish green apex, oblong-lanceolate, 3-5 mm, apex acuminate; stamens 1.5-2 mm; anthers 1 mm, apex minutely apiculate; style bulbous-conical, 0.5 mm; stigma unlobed. Berries orangish red, globose, 5-6 mm. Seeds 2.5 mm. 2n = 16, 54.

Flowering summer. Dense, damp coniferous forests; 0--1600 m; Alta., B.C.; Alaska, Idaho, Oreg., Wash.; e Asia.

The North American plants, usually referred to var. brevipes (N. C. Fassett 1935), differ from the typical Asiatic ones in lacking leaf-margin ciliation (F. H. Utech and S. Kawano 1975, 1976b; H. Takahashi 1976).