Tufted and diffuse, short, robust perennial, 15-30 cm tall, glabrous, sub-glaucous; rootstock thick, densely covered with 2-5 cm long withered sheathing leaf bases; branched below, with branches elongated and twisted together. Radical leaves nearly as long as the stem, 4-5-jugately pinnate, petiolate, with petiole about as long as the lamina and conspicuously sheathing at base; pinnae very shortly petioluled to sessile, ovate, 15-30 mm long, often deeply 3-lobed; lobes again deeply to shallowly 1-3 lobuled; lobule (ultimate segment) up to 20 (-25) mm long, 3-5 mm broad, oblong to lanceolate, often decurrent, acute. Stem simple, usually with 4 cauline leaves in 2 subopposite pairs (sometimes alternate or opposite); cauline leaves similar to radical leaves but smaller, less lobed, shortly petioled to sessile or subsessile. Racemes dense, 20-30-flowered, simple or branched below, conspicuously large bracteate; bracts lanceolate to linear-elliptic, 10-25 mm long, (3-) 5-10 mm broad, acute, ± entire, veined. Flowers yellow, c. 20 mm long, 7-9 mm broad; spur robust, blunt, about half as long as the flower. Sepals c. 2 mm in diam., suborbicular, much dissected. Upper petal with a conspicuous broad and elongated dorsal wing with blunt or rounded apex; lower petal similar to the upper and conspicuously saccate at base. Pedicel 10-15 mm long, stout, deflexed, as long or longer than the short and broad capsule. Capsule obovate or broadly ellipsoid, 6-10 mm long, c. 4 mm broad, 6-8-seeded; style 3-5 mm long, curved at the apex with broad stigma; seeds biseriate, 1.5-2 mm in diam., shining black.