Plants 14--20 cm tall, to 40 cm in fruit. Rhizome 2.5--4 mm in diam. Leaves 5--8, fully expanded by anthesis; petiole 2.5--12 cm, with pilose hairs; leaf blade ovate to narrowly ovate, 2.8--6 × 2--3.5 cm, 3-foliolate but lower leaflets essentially same shape as lateral segments of central leaflet, 2 × pinnate, abaxially sparsely pilose, adaxially nearly glabrous; lower leaflets and lateral segments of terminal leaflet obliquely ovate, pinnately divided, terminal lobes narrowly lanceolate to narrowly ovate, ca. 1 mm wide, apex acute. Scapes 1 or 2, erect, 2.5--4.5 cm, elongated to 22 cm in fruit, with hairs; involucral bracts ca. 1.8 cm, basally connate into a ca. 2 mm tube, apically deeply 3-lobed, lobes narrowly lanceolate, abaxially puberulent, margin entire or with 3 lobes. Flower nodding before and at anthesis. Sepals blue-violet to lilac, erect, elliptical to ovate, 1.4--1.9 × 0.8--0.9 cm, abaxially puberulent, apically slightly recurved. Anthers yellow. Infructescences ca. 5 cm in diam. Achenes ca. 4 mm, long puberulent. Persistent styles 1.5--2.4 cm. Fl. May--Jun.