Herbs, perennial, 10-30 cm tall, glabrous. Rhizome ± vertical with long soft roots and long terminal rosette with leaves in 2 rows. Stems 2-6, axillary from previous year’s leaves, basally decumbent, ascending, simple or often branched above, with 3-7 leaves. Basal leaves many; petiole ca. as long as blade, long vaginate at base; blade ovate to oblong, bipinnate; pinnae 3 or 4 pairs; pinnules usually 3, deeply 3-lobed; segments dense, often imbricate, elliptic or ovate, 3-4 × ca. 2 mm. Cauline leaves like rosette leaves, becoming progressively smaller upward. Raceme capitate to subspicate, 2-4 × 2-2.5 cm, 15-27-flowered; bracts spatulate, 5-8(-10) mm; limb purple, membranous, subentire, finely erose-dentate. Pedicel 5-8 mm. Sepals early withering, brown, 3-4 × 3-4 mm, deeply laciniate-dentate. Flowers creamy white to usually yellow, often with brown flecks, spur sometimes with purplish tinge, inner petals with blue dorsal crests. Outer petals obtuse, slightly dentate, with 1.5-2-mm-wide short crest much overtopping apex; upper petal 14-18 mm; spur strongly curved in a tight semicircle, 4-6 mm (measured in center of spur), apex thickened; nectary ca. 1/2 as long as spur; lower petal with long straight claw gradually widened into rounded to obcordate dentate limb; inner petals 10-13 mm. Stigma slightly emarginate with 4 distinct marginal simple papillae in upper 1/2; geminate papillae lateral (sometimes lacking) and in basal corners. Capsule pendent from erect pedicel, oblong to obovoid, ca. 10 × 4 mm, explosively dehiscent; style ca. 4 mm. Fl. and fr. Jul-Sep.
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