Herbs, perennial, 20-50 cm tall, papillose-scabrid on veins and petioles (less so on stems), rarely densely papillose throughout, usually ± glaucous. Rootstock underground, vertical, cylindric-elongate, robust, often branched below, apically with 1-5 annual stems. Stems with few scales or petiolar remnants on simple or sparingly branched underground portion; aerial part weak, diffusely much branched from soil surface. Leaves stalked; blade triangular-ovate, 4-5 cm, bipinnate to triternate; pinnules ternate, with ± divided lobes; ultimate segments obovate, mucronate. Racemes 5-20-flowered; bracts oblanceolate, mostly entire, or lower and middle ones more divided (especially in subsp. laeviangula). Pedicel 5-15 mm, recurved in fruit. Sepals 1.5-2 mm, rounded, deeply lacerate-dentate. Flowers golden yellow, not dark tipped, sometimes with orange or brownish suffusion; upper petal broadly obtuse, usually with irregularly sinuous broad dorsal crest; spur upcurved, 6-9 mm; nectary ca. 3/4 as long as spur; inner petals 6-8 mm; lower petal broad, obtuse, with small crest. Stigma with 6 simple papillae. Fruit sometimes spotted or streaked with blackish purple, oblong, 6-11 × ca. 2 mm, with finely and densely papillose ridges, 3-10-seeded; style ca. 2 mm. Seeds in 1 row, ca. 1.5 mm, smooth or rugose. Fl. and fr. Jun-Oct.
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