Clintonia udensis is a perennial herbaceous plant that spreads by means of underground rhizomes, forming colonies on the floors of temperate forests.

[5] The specific epithet udensis, which means "from the River Uda or the Uden district of Siberia",[6] evidently refers to a region in the Russian Far East where the plant is known to occur.

As of September 2020[update], Plants of the World Online accepts the following infraspecific names:[2] The word alpina means "of upland or mountainous regions".

[10] Clintonia udensis is wide-ranging, from the Russian Far East to southeast Asia, extending east-west from the Kuril Islands in the Pacific Ocean to the Western Himalaya region.

alpina is found in the Himalayas (from Uttarakhand to Bhutan), Assam, northern Myanmar, and western China.