[1][2] The terminal and secondary twigs of C. tenuipes are slender, cylindrical and tapering; initially grayish-yellow, later changing to brownish-red.

They have shaggy hairs that lie flatly to the stem surface when new, which are lost by degrees over time.

The undersides are grayish with raised veins, and covered with short, woolly hairs which lie flatly to the surface; the uppersides are green, with slightly impressed veins, and sparsely covered with long, thin, soft, weak, hairs when young, but nearly hairless with age.

The sepals (~1.2 mm long) are triangularly ovate, and the petals (~3–4 mm long and almost as broad) are white and stiff, ovate or suborbicular, and are clawed at their base, giving it its epithet tenuipes which equates roughly with "slender foot" or "slender claw".

[4] Cotoneaster tenuipes is found naturally in China, in the provinces of Gansu, Qinghai, Shaanxi, Sichuan, Tibet and Yunnan, in forested and dryer, rocky, montane slopes, at elevations between 1900 and 3100 meters high.