General: Annual herb from a taproot; stems erect, sometimes decumbent, simple or branched, minutely hairy or glandular-hairy at least above, 5-30 cm tall.
Leaves: Upper leaves alternate, entire, linear to lance-elliptic; lower leaves opposite, more egg-shaped; 1-5 cm long, unstalked, at least the upper leaves hairy to glandular.
Flowers: Inflorescence of pairs of flowers (one stalked the other not) at the ends of the stem and branches, or single in the axils of leaf-like bracts; corollas pinkish-white, 5-15 mm long, the tube white or yellowish, spreading to five pink to pale purple, squared-off or notched, 1-2 mm long lobes; calyces 5-10 mm long, glandular-hairy, with 5 green ribs separated by membranous tissue that is ruptured by the ripening capsule, the slender teeth about as long as the tube.
Fruits: Capsules, spheric to egg-shaped, 3-chambered; seeds 1 per chamber.
Moist to dry grasslands, meadows, rocky slopes, floodplain terraces, streamsides, gravelly roadsides and forest openings in the lowland, steppe and lower montane zones; common in S BC, infrequent northward; ssp. gracilis - mostly west of the Coast-Cascade Mountains, N to Vancouver Island, introduced in SE AK, S to CA, OR and MT; ssp. humilis - mostly east of Coast-Cascade Mountains, N to S YT (where probably introduced), S to MT, NM, CA and MX, S America.
Ecological Framework for Microsteris gracilis var. gracilis
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)
