General: Annual herb from a taproot; stems erect, unbranched or branched above in robust plants, finely hairy below but long-hairy and glandular above, 10-60 cm tall.
Leaves: Alternate, numerous, linear or lanceolate, 1-5 cm long, 1-10 mm wide, generally hairless above, glaucous and minutely hairy and slightly glandular below, unstalked, entire; uppermost leaves (below the flower clusters) wider than the rest and often pale at the base.
Flowers: Inflorescence of 1 to several, terminal, head-like clusters of 7-20 unstalked flowers; corollas pink, bluish or white, the slender, trumpet-shaped tube 8-15 mm long, spreading to five short (1.5-3 mm) lobes; calyces 4-7 mm long, the five narrowly triangular lobes 1.5-3 mm long during flowering but elongating to 3-4 mm in fruit; pollen generally white.
Fruits: Capsules, with 1-seeded chambers; seeds becoming sticky when moistened.
Dry to moist open grasslands, clearings, old fields, roadsides, and other disturbed sites in the lowland, steppe, and montane zones; common in S BC, less so northward where possibly introduced in some localities; N to AK, YT and NT, E to NB and NS and S to NE, WI, NM and CA.
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)
