It is a medium plant (20 to 40cm), with nodding, chequered, bell shaped purple flowers.

Originally a plant of wet meadows, but now regularly planted.

Flowering in April and May.

Perennial.

It was once common in wet meadows in the South of Britain, but draining, ploughing and fertilizers have greatly reduced the sites where the massed blooms appear in the wild.

Rare in Leicestershire and Rutland where all records are probably of introduced plants. In the 1979 Flora survey of Leicestershire it was found in 2 of the 617 tetrads.