Herbs, perennial, (5-)10-20(-30) cm tall, slightly to usually very glaucous. Rhizome long, branched, with pale brown scales and residual petiolar bases throughout, but especially at apex. Stems from radical leaf axil, simple, very rarely branched, with 1-3 leaves toward base. Radical leaves many, 10-15 cm; petiole 3-8 cm, vaginate; blade oblong, 5-12 × 1.5-2.5 cm, pinnate; pinnae in 4-7 pairs, closely set, entire or usually cleft into 2-5 broadly obovate mutually overlapping lobes. Raceme very dense at first, (8-)15-30-flowered, much elongating in fruit; lower bracts ca. 2 × 1 cm, pinnatifid with acute lobes, upper ones narrowly lanceolate, all longer than pedicels, dentate to entire. Pedicel (5-)10-15 mm, at fruiting recurved and 10-20 mm. Sepals whitish, ca. 1 × 1 mm, dentate. Corolla pale yellow to orange-yellow with darker veins; outer petals with broad entire crest, subacute; upper petal 20-21 mm, crest extended to spur or shortly decurrent on spur; spur downcurved at apex, cylindric, 9-10 mm; nectary extended through ca. 1/2 of spur; rest of lower petal short and broad; inner petals ca. 10 mm; claw shorter than limb. Stigma square, with 4 apical papillae, laterally and on basal lobes with geminate papillae. Capsule oblong, 10-14 × 2-3.5 mm, 3-7-seeded; style ca. 3 mm. Seeds in 1 row, nearly orbicular, ca. 2.5 mm; caruncle broadly ovate, small, appressed to seeds. Fl. and fr. Jul-Sep.

● Alpine grasslands, stony scree; 2700-5000 m. S and SW Gansu, Qinghai, N Sichuan (Songpan, Zoigê), E Xizang.