Perennial herb, 30–70 cm., with a rather slender underground creeping rootstock, sparingly branched above.. Stem ± terete, hollow, pale-striate, slender, glabrescent to ± furnished with fine, rather long, multicellular hairs.. Basal leaves long-petiolate (petioles (3–)5–16 cm.), bi-to tripinnate, deltoid in outline, the lower pinnulae (and when tripinnatisect their lower leaflets also) petiolulate; leaflets deltoid or deltoid-ovate, mostly 1–4.5 × 0.8–3.5 cm., crenate-or more rarely serrate-dentate; rhachis and all leaflets subglabrous to ± multicellular-pilose at least towards the base on the lower surface of the primary venation; sheaths short and broad, oblong to triangular, striate; lower stem leaves similar but more shortly petiolate, few or none; median and upper stem leaves deeply and narrowly divided, entire or more distantly toothed, the uppermost trisect with narrow, entire lobes or simple and bract-like; rarely all leaves repeatedly pinnate into short narrow segments (up to ± 7 × 1 mm. in the basal leaves).. Umbels rather few, on erect or divergent, 2–5 cm., pilose peduncles; rays 3–5, distinctly multicellular-pilose, 1.5–2.5 cm.; involucre of 1–2 linear bracts up to 1 cm. long; flowers 5–8(–12) in each partial umbel, all hermaphrodite, usually with some fruit maturing and some abortive on 2–7 mm. pilose pedicels; involucel of (0–)1–3 linear bracts mostly ± 3 mm. long.. Petals ± 1 mm., white or greenish white.. Fruit ovate, ± 3–4 × 2 mm., distinctly short-pilose when young but glabrescent at maturity, blackish when ripe with greenish ribs; calyx very conspicuous, teeth linear-lanceolate to subulate, very unequal, the longest to ± 1.5 mm.; stylopodia elongate-conical, much shorter than the 1.5–3 mm., widely divergent styles.
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