Plants annual, 40-70 cm tall. Stem succulent, robust, many branched in upper part, glabrous, lower nodes often swollen with fibrous roots. Leaves alternate, upper leaves shortly petiolate or subsessile; petiole 2-5 cm, slender; leaf blade green abaxially, dark green adaxially, ovate or ovate-elliptic, 3-8 × 1.5-4 cm, both surfaces glabrous, base cuneate or rounded, margin crenate, teeth mucronulate, apex obtuse, rarely acute. Inflorescences 2-4-flowered; peduncles 1-1.5 cm. Pedicels 1.5-2 mm, bracteate above middle; bracts persistent, lanceolate, 3-5 mm, herbaceous. Flowers yellow. Lateral sepals 2, ovate or broadly ovate, 5-6 mm, apex acute. Lower sepal sparsely orange spotted, broadly funnelform, gradually narrowed into an incurved spur 1-1.5 cm. Upper petal orbicular or suborbicular, ca. 1 cm in diam., apex emarginate, rostellate, abaxial midvein green cristate; lateral united petals not clawed, 2-2.5 cm, 2-lobed; basal lobes oblong, small; distal lobes orange spotted at base, broadly dolabriform; auricle narrow. Filaments linear, slightly swollen above; anthers ovoid, apex acute. Ovary erect, fusiform. Capsule linear-cylindric, 1.5-2.5 cm. Seeds many, brown, oblong-globose, 3-4 mm, smooth. Fl. Jul-Sep. 2n = 20.
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A succulent annual herb. It grows 40-100 cm high. The leaves are alternate and narrowly oval. They are 5-10 cm long by 2.5 cm wide. They taper to the tip and are wedge shaped at the base. There are rounded teeth along the edge. The flowers are showy and have yellow and red spots. They have 2 equal halves. There are 2 or 3 flowers in a cluster on slender stalks. The fruit are narrow capsules that open explosively. They coil back. There are mant brown seeds.
In China it grows in the mountains in western Hubei. It grows in shady, damp places. It grows along canals between 900-2,400 m above sea level.
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By streams, wet ground in woods in N. Wales, the Lake District, Yorkshire and Lancashire.
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