Erect, perennial herb, 50-100 cm tall, sparingly branched, with creeping, scaly rhizomes, glabrous, stem and branches pale, straw coloured. Leaves 2-3-ternate, compound, (10-) 15-30 cm long, 8-15 cm broad, including up to 10 cm long petioles, ultimately each pinnae with 3 leaflets; leaflets petioluled, ovate-cordate, symmetrical or oblique, 2-4(-6) cm long, 1.5- 3.5(-4) cm broad, terminal ones usually slightly larger than the lateral ones, subserrately toothed with spinulous tips, submembranous, apex obtuse to rounded; petiolules usually shorter than the blade, thin, usually slightly swollen at base. Panicle up to 25 cm long, irregularly branched, glabrous to glandular-hairy. Flowers 5-7 mm across, pale yellowish or yellowish white; bracts c. 2 mm long, 1 mm broad, linear-lanceolate; pedicels up to 2(-2.5) cm long in fruit, filiform, spreading or ascending. Sepals c. 3 mm long, ovate-lanceolate, acute. Petals 6-8 mm long, 2 mm broad, lanceolate-elliptic, innermost honey bearing pair shorter, shoe-shaped. Stamens 4, opposite the petals; anthers linear, c. half as long as the filaments, opening by 2 upcurved valves, usually crowded together. Capsules 5-10 mm long, 2-3 mm broad, usually 2-3-seeded, submembranous, with the dorsal suture continued by a style 3-5 mm long; seeds biseriate, c. 2 mm in diameter, reniform, black.
Type: Kashmir, 6000--7000 ft., Jacquemont (K,P.).
Distribution: Pakistan, Kashmir and W. Himalaya.
Differs from the European Epimedium alpinism L., primarily by its longer stamen filaments and ovary.
