E-Flora BC: Electronic Atlas of the Flora of British Columbia

General:
Annual herb from a taproot; stems often branched, hairless or minutely hairy in part, 5-25 cm tall.

Leaves:
Opposite, unstalked, palmately cleft into 3 to 7 segments 5-20 mm long, or the uppermost leaves entire, the segments thread-like, fringed with bristly hairs; leaves of the inflorescence longer than those below and more densely fringed.

Flowers:
Inflorescence an open, branching, terminal cluster of flowers solitary on long thread-like stalks in the forks and at the ends of the branches; corollas white, lavender or pale blue, yellow in the throats, 2.5-6 mm long, about 1.5 times as long as the calyx, the short funnel-shaped tube spreading to five lobes and with a ring of short hairs in the throat; calyces 1-3 mm long, the 5 teeth lance-triangular.

Fruits:
Capsules, 3-chambered; seeds 2 to 8 per chamber, swelling and becoming sticky when moistened.