Herbs, perennial, glabrous, flowering second (rarely first) year, diffuse, 15-50 cm tall. Taproot persistent, crowned by very short firm knotty rhizome 5-10 × 3-5 mm, with tiny traces of previous year’s rosette leaves, apically with lax leaf rosette and few to several stems. Stems decumbent, weak, branched. Rosette leaves few, mostly withered at flowering; petiole 6-12 cm, base sheathed; cauline leaves: petiole 3-7 cm, base with membranous auricles, axillary buds thick, black; blade glaucous abaxially, green adaxially, triangular, 2-8 × 2-6 cm, biternate; pinnae long petiolulate; pinnules shortly petiolulate, narrowly flabellate, entire to divided, coarsely crenate-dentate to lobed; teeth/lobules rounded, mucronate. Racemes 2-7(-9)-flowered, 2-5 cm; bracts broadly obovate to oblong-cuneate, 6-11 mm, deeply 3-divided or coarsely dentate with acute teeth to almost entire; upper ones entire. Pedicel 3-6 mm in flower, in fruit elongating to 5-10 mm. Sepals rounded, peltate, 1-2 mm, finely dentate. Corolla purple or white; upper petal 23-28 mm, acuminate, abaxially with short crest ca. 1 mm wide; spur straight, slightly tapering to apex, 11-14 mm; nectary 1/3-1/2 as long as spur; lower petal 12-15 mm, abaxially shortly crested; claw with narrow basal 1/3, slightly broader straight or saccate middle 1/3, distal 1/3 widened into elliptic acuminate limb; inner petals 11-14 mm. Stigma square, with 6 marginal simple papillae (lateral ones sometimes confluent); geminate papillae lateral (submarginal) and on basal lobes. Capsule 19-26(-38) × ca. 2 mm, 10-20-seeded; style ca. 2 mm. Seeds 1.5-1.7 mm, smooth; caruncle broad, spreading. Fl. and fr. Apr-Dec.
Home