General: Annual herb from a taproot; stems ascending to erect, several, branched or simple, 4-15 cm tall.
Leaves: Basal leaves a pair or more numerous in a rosette, egg-shaped to elliptic; stem leaves opposite, lanceolate to elliptic, 4-15 mm long, 1-4 mm wide, not joined (except for the lower ones).
Flowers: Inflorescence of solitary, terminal, long-stalked flowers, the stalks longer than the adjacent internodes; corollas blue to white, 8-15 mm long, tubular, 4-lobed (sometimes 5-lobed), the lobes each bearing a pair of fringed scales; calyces 4-10 mm long, 4- to 5- lobed, the lobes 1/2 the length of the corollas or longer; stamens shorter than the corolla tubes; anthers 0.8-1.0 mm long.
Fruits: Capsules, narrowly egg-shaped; seeds egg-shaped, slightly flattened, wingless, nearly glabrous, yellow to light brown, 0.6-0.8 mm long.
Moist meadows from the montane to alpine zones; rare, known only from Tagish Lake (N BC) and Tenquille Lake (S BC); circumpolar, N to AK, YT and NT and S to CO, UT, NM, AZ and CA; Eurasia.