Herbs, perennial, 7-25 cm tall. Rootstock long, 5-8 mm in diam., simple or often branched, apically with some remnants of petiolar bases. Stems few to several, branched, with 3-5 leaves. Leaves fleshy, papillose-scabrid along margins and veins; lower ones 7-12 cm, with broad sheathing petioles; blade oblong, 5-8 × 2-2.5 cm, pinnate; leaflets 4-7 pairs, 10-12 × 9-12 mm, cut into 3-8 broadly ovate or obovate, overlapping lobes (sometimes not overlapping in luxurious or shade-grown individuals); upper leaves like basal leaves, but smaller and shortly stalked. Racemes very dense, 20-30-flowered, slightly elongating in fruit; lower bracts entire to 3-fid or pinnatifid, upper ones entire, broadly oblanceolate to subspatulate, densely papillose-scabrid along margin and veins, fleshy. Pedicel recurved in fruit, 5-10 mm. Flowers dirty yellow, darker toward keels of outer petals. Sepals 0.3-1.5 × 0.4-1.5 mm, dentate. Outer petals narrow, subacute, with narrow to rather broad entire to slightly dentate crest reaching or overtopping apex; upper petal 14-17 mm; spur arcuately downcurved, cylindric, 6-9 mm; nectary extended through 1/2-2/3 of spur; lower petal ca. 8 mm; inner petals ca. 7 mm, claw shorter than limb. Stigma square, with 4 apical papillae, laterally and on basal lobes with geminate papillae. Capsule narrowly obovoid, 7-8 × ca. 2 mm; style ca. 2 mm. Seeds in 1 row. Fl. Jul-Sep, fr. Aug-Sep.