Usually a weak, procumbent, perennial herb, (10-) 20-40 (-60) cm tall, much branched, leafy, glabrous, subglaucous; rootstock 3-5 mm broad, slender, simple or branched, often short noded; branches often long and straggling. Leaves usually 3-pinnately divided or decompound, 7-12 cm long, 3-4 cm broad (incl. petiole about half as long, ± sheathing at base) ; pinnae and pinnules petioluled; pinnules deeply lobed into a number of ultimate segments, 1-2 cm in diam., ovate to suborbicular; lobules or ultimate segments (2-) 4-10 (-12) mm long, 1-3 (-4) mm broad,, linear-oblong to obovate-oblong, apex acute to rounded, minutely acuminate. Racemes simple, many, terminating the branches, 3-12 cm long, lax in fruit, each 10-20-flowered, bracteate; bracts usually deeply dissected, sometimes upper most ones subentire or entire, leafy, lower ones 10-20 mm long, 3-sect, shortly stalked to sessile. Flowers small and broad, yellow, 10-12 mm long including spur half or slightly more than half as long, straight and obtuse. Sepals 1-1.5 mm in diam., minutely much dissected at the margin, membranous. Lamina of upper petal hooded and dorsally winged, wings denticulate to almost entire, very variable; lower petal similarly winged and saccate at base, Capsule ovate-oblong, 7-10 (-12) mm long, 3.5-5 mm broad, on about equally long or slightly longer pedicel, deflexed; valves finely striated; style 1.5-2 mm long with a dilated curved stigma; seeds 6-8 (-10), biseriate, 1.5-2 mm in diam., shining black.