Erect, stout perennial, usually tufted, (15-) 25-50 (-60) cm tall, with simple or sparsely branched, striated stem, much exceeding the radical leaves, apparently glabrous, glaucous; rootstock thick, simple or shortly branched, with rigid, often shining sheathing leaf bases. Radical leaves many, often congested, somewhat fleshy, 7-15 cm long, (1.5-) 2-4 cm broad, 2-3-pinnatisect, with petiole about as long as the lamina; pinnae petioluled to sessile, in 3-5 lateral pairs and a terminal one, 1.5-3 cm long, 1-1.5 cm broad, 3-4-lobed, each lobe again ternately lobuled (ultimate segments); lobule very variable, ovate-trangulate to linear-oblong, (1-) 3-6 (-8) mm long, 1-3 mm broad, acute or minutely acuminate, sometimes shortly mucronate or ciliate, cauline leaves alternate, subopposite, few to many, similar but gradually becoming smaller upwards, sessile to conspicuously stalked, with or without a sheathing base. Recemes terminal, usually dense and congested, simple (rarely branched below), 20-30-flowered, 3-5 cm long, 2-4 cm broad; bracts hyaline, membranous to submembranous, 3-6 (-8) mm long, subulate or linear, about as long as the pedicel, entire to denticulate, acute to acuminate. Flowers yellow, 12-15 (-18) mm long, including 2.5-4 mm long spur, subglobose or gibbous at base. Sepal 2-4 mm long, ovate to lance-shaped, with fimbriate base. Upper petals slender, abruptly semiglobose near the apex and somewhat upcurved acsuminate or mucronate tip, not dorsally winged. but margins slightly expanded and fimbriate; lower petal similar to the lamina of upper petal, slender, narrow below, not or hardly saccate at base. Capsule linear, 20-30 mm long, 2.5-3.5 mm broad, straight, often pendulous on a somewhat thickened pedicel, many seeded, with ± uniseriate seeds; style 2-3 mm long, curved at apex with broad stigma; seeds c. 2 mm in diam., shining black.