General: Annual herb from a taproot; stems ascending to erect, several, simple or branched from the base, 4-40 cm tall.
Leaves: Basal leaves oblanceolate to spoon-shaped or elliptic, crowded, forming a rosette; stem leaves opposite, narrowly egg-shaped, 5-35 mm long, 2-10 mm wide, not joined at the base.
Flowers: Inflorescence of loose, axillary and terminal clusters of several to many, stalked flowers; corollas blue to white, 12-20 mm long, tubular to narrowly funnelform, 4-lobed, the lobes not fringed in the throat; calyces 5-12 mm long, 4-lobed, the lobes longer than the tubes; stamens as long as the corolla tubes; anthers 0.7-1.5 mm long.
Fruits: Capsules, cylindric; seeds egg-shaped, wingless, glabrous, light to dark brown, 0.6-0.8 mm long.
Moist meadows, streambanks, open forests and roadsides in all zones; frequent in N BC, less frequent southward in and E of the Coast-Cascade Mountains; N to AK, YT and NT, E to NF and S to MT.
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)
