Herbs, perennial, 10-25 cm tall, very gray-glaucous, papillose-hairy on veins and margins of cauline leaves and bracts. Rootstock cylindric, apex often crowned with pale residual petiolar bases. Stems 1-4, from radical leaf axils, 1-3-leaved, simple or sparingly branched. Radical leaves: petiole ca. 1/2 as long as blade, long vaginate; blade narrowly oblong, 7-12 × 2.5-4 cm, bipinnate with 4-6 pairs of sessile ovate pinnae, lower ones distant, distal ones dense; pinnules densely crowded, deeply cut into 3-6 obovate crispate-imbricate clearly mucronate small lobes. Lower cauline leaves like radical leaves; upper ones (if present) smaller and less divided. Racemes 11-33-flowered, very dense at first, considerably elongating in fruit; lower and middle bracts (10-)15-25 mm, often shortly stalked, pinnatilobate; upper ones lanceolate, usually entire, acute. Pedicel 5-20 mm, sharply recurved in fruit. Sepals 1-1.5 × 1.5-3.5 mm (midvein often prolonged into slender tail), deeply dentate. Flowers bright yellow, at first suberect, soon slightly nodding. Outer petals: crest high, much extended beyond apex, slightly undulate; upper petal 19-22 mm, acute; spur slightly arcuately downcurved, cylindric, 8-10 mm; nectary extended through ca. 1/2 of spur; inner petals 9-10 mm. Stigma square, with confluent apical papillae, geminate papillae lateral and on pronounced basal lobes. Capsule narrowly obovoid, 13-15 × 2-3 mm, 5-10-seeded, when ripe with rows of small papillae; style ca. 2.5 mm. Seeds smooth. Fl. and fr. Jun-Aug.
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