Herbs, perennial, 30-75 cm tall. Rootstock stout, crowned with scales and residual petiolar bases. Stems ascending from scales or radical leaf axils, much branched, lower part without leaves, upper 1/2 with 4-7 leaves. Radical leaves ca. 1/2 as long as stems, long petiolate; blade pale glaucous abaxially, green adaxially, ovate or ovate-oblong, bipinnate; primary leaflets ca. 4 pairs, petiolulate; secondary leaflets sessile, 3-fid, sometimes again bifid to trifid; ultimate lobes lanceolate, 6-20 × 2-10 mm. Cauline leaves like radical leaves, but smaller and less divided, shortly petiolate to sessile. Racemes dense, 10-30-flowered, 3-10 cm; lowermost bracts leaflike or 3-lobed, others broadly lanceolate and entire, often with a distinct stalk, shorter to ca. as long as pedicels. Pedicel slender, 6-16 mm, to 20 mm and ± arcuate in fruit. Sepals small, 1-2 × 0.5-1 mm (ca. 8 × 3.5 mm in var. megacalyx), slightly dentate. Flowers straw-colored to yellow. Upper petal 16-23(-28) mm, without or with very narrow crest, straight; spur cylindric or often thicker toward apex, 8-12(-15) mm, rounded at tip; nectary extended through ca. 1/2 of spur; lower petal navicular, base contracted; inner petals 8-10 mm, claw ca. as long as limb. Stigma compressed-orbicular, with 8 papillae. Capsule linear, 13-19 mm. Seeds in 1 row, black, shiny, orbicular, 1.5-2 mm; caruncle broadly spreading, flat, appressed. Fl. and fr. Jul-Aug.
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