Erect or scrambling, pleasantly aromatic shrub to c. 3 m high; stems with sturdy curved prickles to c. 12 mm long, sometimes also glandular-hairy. Leaves pinnate, 5–7-foliolate; leaflets ovate to obovate or suborbicular, mostly 10–30 mm long, 5–20 mm wide, base and apex rounded, margins serrate, upper surface glabrous or hairy, lower surface usually with a mixture of simple and glandular hairs; stipules glandular. Flowers single or in few-flowered terminal corymbs; peduncles glandular-acicular, prickly. Sepals 5, outer ones often pinnatifid, glandular and spiny, hardly reflexed after flowering; petals 5, obovate to suborbicular, 8–25 mm long, emarginate, pink; stamens and styles numerous, styles free, not protruding. Hip ovoid to globose, 15–20 mm long, glabrous or with glandular hairs and bristles, red to almost black, sepals often persistent. Flowers Nov.–Jan.