Herbs perennial, acaulescent, 2-13 cm tall. Rhizome usually erect, short, 2-10 mm, slender or slightly thick, densely noded, with several yellowish rootlets. Leaves 2 to numerous, basal; outer stipules submembranous, inner ones greenish, 2/3 adnate to petioles, free part linear-lanceolate or lanceolate, margin remotely fimbriate-dentate; petiole 1.5-6 cm, slender, wingless or very narrowly winged in upper part, usually puberulous or subglabrous; leaf blade abaxially dark purple to green, adaxially green, ovate or broadly ovate, 1-3 × 1-2 cm, accrescent at fruiting, to 6 × ca. 4.5 cm, glabrous or puberulous along veins or margin, base slightly cordate or subrounded, margin shallowly crenate, apex obtuse. Flowers purple-violet; pedicels slightly or not exceeding leaves, slender, puberulous or subglabrous, 2-bracteolate at or slightly below middle; bracteoles linear. Sepals usually green or purplish red, lanceolate or ovate-lanceolate, 5-8 × 1.5-2 mm, glabrous or puberulous, 3-veined, margin narrowly membranous, apex acute, basal auricles short, 1-3 mm, apex truncate or rounded, rarely shallowly dentate. Petals obovate, upper ones 1-1.2 × ca. 6 mm, lateral ones 8-11 × 3-4.5 mm, slightly bearded or glabrous, anterior one 1.5-1.7(-2) cm (spur included); spur cylindric, 5-7(-9) mm, robust or slender, 1.2-3 mm in diam., apex rounded and curved upward. Anthers 1.5-2 mm; spur of 2 anterior stamens long, ca. 5.5 mm, slender, ca. 0.3 mm in diam., apex rounded and slightly curved. Ovary glabrous or puberulous; styles clavate, base geniculate forward, conspicuously thickened in upper part; stigmas conspicuously thickened on lateral sides and abaxially, slightly raised in central part, shortly beaked in front, with a stigma hole open upward at tip of beak. Capsule ellipsoid, 4-6 mm, glabrous.

Forests, forest margins, thickets, mountain slopes, dry places in open fields; below 2300 m. Gansu, Hebei, Heilongjiang, Henan, Jiangsu, Jilin, Liaoning, Nei Mongol, Shaanxi, Shandong, Shanxi [Korea, Russia].