Herbs, perennial, 15-60 cm tall, glabrous. Rootstock (in older plants) long, 0.5-2 cm in diam., deeply furrowed or with intertwining contorted elements; soft roots arising from base of leaf crown. Stems 1 to usually several, glaucous, green, ascending to erect or prostrate in older plants, branched, with many leaves. Leaves several, crowded at base but many all along stem; petiole 3-15 cm, forming rather acute angle with stem, long vaginate; blade pruinose abaxially, green adaxially, broadly to narrowly ovate, biternate, with terminal leaflet larger; pinnae petiolulate; pinnules shortly petiolulate or sessile, deeply ternatisect, lobes often again 2-4-divided; ultimate divisions obovate to oblanceolate, obtuse. Racemes 7-15-flowered, dense, much elongating in fruit; bracts broadly obovate, 5-10 mm, lower ones slightly 3-5-divided, upper ones entire, acute to acuminate. Pedicel 5-9 mm, much recurved in fruit. Sepals whitish, reniform to broadly ovate, ca. 1 × 1.5 mm, finely dentate. Corolla dull purple (inner petals paler); outer petals with entire crest 1.5-2(-2.5) mm conspicuously overtopping apex (i.e., petal apex prolonged to slender tip carrying crest); upper petal 19-25 mm; spur cylindric or slightly tapering, 8-11 mm, obtuse; nectary 1/3-2/5 as long as spur; lower petal with long narrow claw, apically gradually broadened into rhombic-acute limb; inner petals 9-13 mm. Stigma with (6-)8 simple marginal papillae; geminate papillae sublateral and on basal lobes. Capsule linear, 16-24 × 1.7-2 mm, 9-12-seeded; style ca. 2.5 mm. Seeds ca. 1.7 mm, smooth. Fl. and fr. May-Aug.
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