Herbs, perennial, 8-15(-25) cm tall, glabrous. Rhizome 1-4 cm, buried below scree-or soil-surface, with fleshy bulblike pale terminal hibernation bud; scales numerous, 4-8 × 2-3 mm; roots numerous, 8-10 cm × 1-2 mm, slightly fleshy. Flowering stems 1-10, axillary to previous year’s bud scales or leaf rosette, often reddish, suberect to ascending, with (0 or)1 or 2(or 3) branches, with 2 or 3(or 4) leaves. Radical leaves several; petiole 6-12 cm with sheathing base; blade triangular, 1-3 × 2-4 cm, biternate, primary leaflets ovate, stalks 3-20 mm, secondary leaflets sessile to shortly stalked, ovate, deeply cut into 3-7 oblanceolate or linear obtuse lobes 1-4 mm wide, sometimes tipped with very small dark mucro. Cauline leaves evenly spaced (also at base of stem), lower with petioles 3-10 cm, uppermost shortly stalked or sessile; blade like radical leaves. Racemes 2-3 cm, dense, with obvious peduncle, (5-)8-15-flowered, slightly elongating in fruit; lowermost bract 10-15 mm, like uppermost leaf, bracts upward progressively less divided; upper ones oblanceolate, 8-13 mm, entire. Pedicel erect, slender, 8-10 mm, 10-15 mm in fruit. Sepals white, lanceolate, ca. 2 mm, with few sharp teeth. Flowers blue to purplish blue, inner petals often white at extreme tip; upper petal 18-20 mm, crest 1-2 mm wide, almost reaching apex; spur downcurved at tip, cylindric, 11-13 mm; nectary ca. 1/2 as long as spur; lower petal 10-12 mm, claw narrow, straight or rarely slightly saccate at base, dilated into rounded limb 5-7 mm wide, usually irregularly sinuate-dentate, sometimes shortly mucronate; crest short; inner petals 8-10 mm. Stigma subquadrangular, with 4 apical marginal papillae; geminate papillae lateral and in basal corners. Capsule reflexed from erect pedicel, narrowly fusiform, ca. 10 × 1.5-2 mm, 4-10-seeded; style 3-4 mm. Mature seeds not seen. Fl. and fr. Aug-Sep.
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