General: Annual or biennial herb from a slender taproot; stems prostrate or ascending, few to many branched from the base, glabrous, 2-15 cm tall/long.
Leaves: Basal leaves closely crowded, overlapping, spoon-shaped, forming a rosette; stem leaves opposite, 3-8 pairs, long-sheathing and overlapping at the base, egg-shaped to oblong, glaucous with broad whitish margins, 2-7 mm long, 1-5 mm wide.
Flowers: Inflorescence of solitary, stalked flowers; corollas blue or whitish, usually narrowly funnel-shaped, 8-22 mm long, lobes 5, sometimes 4, the plaits between the lobes broadly triangular, 1/2 as long as the lobes; calyces 4- to 5-toothed, 8-16 mm long but shorter than the corolla tubes; stamens shorter than the corolla tubes; anthers 0.5 mm long.
Fruits: Capsules, narrowly ellipsoid on a long stalk; seeds curved, glabrous, wingless or narrowly winged on one side, brown, 1 mm long.
Moist meadows and seepage sites in the upper subalpine and alpine zones; infrequent in N and E BC; circumpolar, N to AK, YT and NT, E to SW AB and S to UT, CO and CA; Eurasia.
The table below shows the species-specific information calculated from original data (BEC database) provided by the BC Ministry of Forests and Range. (Updated August, 2013)