Herbs perennial, 4--9 cm tall, marcescent leaves with petioles and scales persistent at base, drying black. Stems usually 3--7, erect or ascending, slender, with lines of rust colored hairs. Leaves alternate; basal leaves in a rosette; petiole 4--5 cm, slender, sparsely villous; leaf blade ovate-lanceolate to ovate-oblong, 0.8--1.5 cm X 4--5 mm, abaxially sparsely pubescent, scurfy, adaxially glabrous, pinnatisect; segments 6--12 pairs, lanceolate, crenate. Inflorescences subcapitate, usually 4--8-flowered; bracts leaflike. Calyx 7--9 mm, slightly cleft anteriorly, rust colored villous; lobes 5, unequal, oblanceolate, crenate. Corolla purple, 1.5--1.8 cm; tube erect, 0.9--1.2 cm, glabrous; galea falcate apically, usually slightly crested; beak 3--4 mm, slender; lower lip 6--9 mm, distinctly praemorse, glabrous. Filaments glabrous. Capsule lanceolate-oblong, 1.3--1.4 cm X ca. 5 mm, slightly oblique, apex acute. Fl. May--Aug, fr. Aug--Sep.

* Alpine meadows; 3700--4600 m. NW Yunnan.