General: Annual herb from a taproot, short, straight, appressed-hairy (and sometimes curly- or spreading-hairy) throughout; stems usually branched, 10-80 cm tall.
Leaves: Basal leaves oblanceolate, to 10 cm long, often deciduous; stem leaves linear to narrowly oblong or oblanceolate, reduced upwards to the leafy, lanceolate bracts of the inflorescence, unstalked, entire, alternate.
Flowers: Inflorescence of narrow, elongating clusters with bracts throughout; flower stalks ascending to erect when in fruit; petals blue (sometimes white), fused at base into a small tube that flares (2-4 mm wide) at top to 5 lobes, with 5 yellow bulges at throat; fruiting calyces 2.5-3 mm long, the lobes spreading
Fruits: Nutlets 4, clustered together, egg-shaped, 3-4 mm long, with 2(-3) marginal rows of slender, barb-tipped prickles distinct to the base, those of the outer row usually shorter than those of the inner.
Dry to mesic grasslands, shrublands, forest openings and disturbed areas in the steppe and montane zones; common in S BC east of the Coast-Cascade Mountains, less frequent northward; introduced from Eurasia.
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)
