Herbs, perennial, 30-80 cm tall, lower part of stem usually pubescent. Rhizome short, knotty, 10-20 × 5-10 mm, crowned by sparse leaf rosette with bulblike base (sometimes absent?). Stems 1 or few, suberect to ascending (and then sometimes rooting at lower nodes), slender, usually much branched, with 5-8 scattered leaves. Rosette leaves few at anthesis; petiole 6-15(-20) cm; blade glaucous abaxially, green adaxially, triangular, 4-6 × 4-7 cm, biternate; primary leaflets stalked; secondary subsessile, cut 1/2-2/3 into obovate lobes again shallowly divided to crenate-dentate at apex; teeth obtuse, mucronulate. Cauline leaves like radical leaves (lower ones early withering); petiole 1-10 cm, lower long, upper short; blades progressively smaller upward, uppermost often only 1-2 cm. Racemes 7-15(-20)-flowered, terminal and axillary from upper leaves, rather dense at anthesis, elongating to 7-15 cm in fruit; lower bracts to 2 cm, stalked, cut into 3-5 deeply and acutely dentate lobes; middle and upper bracts progressively smaller, entire to large dentate. Pedicel thin, 6-15 mm in flower, 10-20 mm in fruit. Sepals broadly ovate, 1.5-2.5 × 1-2 mm, finely dentate. Flowers purplish blue to reddish purple. Outer petals ecristate, subacute to shortly acuminate; upper petal 19-25 mm; spur straight to upturned at base, straight to slightly downcurved at apex, slightly attenuate to obtuse apex, 10-13 mm; nectary 2/3-3/4 as long as spur; lower petal 12-15 mm, claw narrow, widened into a rhombic-acute limb; inner petals 11-13 mm. Stigma quadrangular; marginal apical papillae: 2 median distinct, lateral diffuse; geminate papillae lateral (submarginal) and on well-developed basal lobes. Capsule pendent from straight erect-spreading pedicel, linear, 14-20 mm, 7-11-seeded; style ca. 3 mm. Seeds in 1 row. Fl. Jul-Aug.
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