Herbs, perennial, 10-30 cm tall, glabrous; stems and petioles of radical leaves attenuate to filiform underground base. Storage roots several, fascicled, very narrowly fusiform to almost linear. Stems 1-4, straight, often reddish, slender, simple, with 2-4 leaves in upper part. Radical leaves few; petiole 4-9 cm; blade orbicular, biternate to palmatisect into obovate lobes. Cauline leaves sessile; blade glaucous on both surfaces, palmately divided into 5-11 narrowly lanceolate to linear lobes 1.5-5 cm × 1-4 mm, entire or median lobes larger and with a few lateral teeth or lobes. Raceme 3-7 cm, 10-15-flowered, at first dense, later distant; lowest bract with 3-5 segments, middle and upper bracts narrowly lanceolate, entire. Pedicel slender. Sepals to 0.5 mm, dentate. Corolla clear blue, with purplish keels; inner petals usually conspicuously tipped with white; outer petals broadly rhombic, ± undulate-dentate, acuminate to a pointed apex; upper petal 11-13 mm, dorsal crest 0.5-1(-1.5) mm wide, tapering to both ends, not reaching apex, ± decurrent on spur; spur ± bent upward, cylindric, 5-7 mm; nectary ca. 1/2 as long as spur; lower petal ca. 10 mm, rhombic-acute with indistinct claw, without dorsal crest; inner petals 8-9 mm, with conspicuous dorsal crest overtopping apex. Stigma shallowly cleft, with 6 simple marginal papillae and geminate papillae on well-developed basal lobes. Capsule pendent from erect pedicel, oblong-linear, 10-13 × ca. 1.5 mm, 3-6-seeded. Seeds slightly striped, 1-1.5 mm; caruncle small. Fl. and fr. Jun-Aug.
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