Herbs, perennial, 35-70 cm tall, glabrous. Rhizome 1-5 cm, with small bulb, and few coarse linear roots. Stems 1-4, angular, erect, branched above, with 3-5 leaves in upper 1/2-2/3; branches erect, strict, thin, with few small leaves. Radical leaves like cauline, early withering (new flush of leaves produced in autumn); petiole 3-7 cm; blade glaucous abaxially, bright green adaxially, orbicular-triangular in outline, 2-3 × 2-3 cm, twice ternate to subpinnate, with leaflets deeply cleft into oblong obtuse lobes. Cauline leaves: petiole to 2 cm or upper leaves subsessile; blade 2-6 × 2-6 cm, like radical leaves. Terminal raceme 10-25-flowered, at anthesis very dense, capitate, or rarely with basalmost flower more distant, elongating in fruit to 5-7 cm. Racemes of axillary branches few flowered; bracts 10-20 mm, narrowly obovate with 1-3 pairs of narrow lateral lobes, narrowed to distinct stalk; lower bracts like upper leaves. Pedicel 7-12 mm in flower, elongating to 20-30 mm in fruit, straight, erect. Sepals white, ovate, ca. 2.5 × 2 mm, circumdentate. Outer petals purple or rarely white with purple apex. Outer petals broad, deeply dentate, crest broad (2-3 mm), short, sharply and deeply dentate, conspicuously overtopping petal apex; upper petal 18-19 mm; spur slightly downcurved at tip, cylindric, ca. 8 mm; nectary ca. 2/3 as long as spur; lower petal with long narrow claw abruptly widened to rounded emarginate deeply dentate limb; inner petals 11-13 mm. Stigma square with 4 apical marginal papillae; geminate papillae lateral and on well-developed basal lobes. Capsules pendent from erect-spreading pedicel, linear, 14-20 × ca. 1.5 mm, 11-18-seeded; style ca. 2 mm. Seeds 1-1.1 mm, smooth. Self-compatible. Fl. and fr. Jun-Jul.
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