Parasitic annual, which resembles a pile of slender orange-yellow string entangled among weeds and low vegetation; leaves absent; flowers about 2.5 mm long on pedicels often several times as long as the flowers, all arranged in fairly dense clusters; calyx base round, the 5 lobes broadly triangular; corolla tube almost enclosed by the calyx, the 5 lobes oval-ovate, obtuse, not overlapping at base, usually reflexed; stamens about as long as corolla, slightly exserted; scales within base of corolla 5, barely reaching the base of stamens, each scale broadly spatulate, narrowed at the base, fringed around the broader tip; ovary globose, slightly pointed at the style bases; capsule depressed-globose, circumscissile, containing 3-4 subglobose seeds about 1 mm long. Flowers late July to early September.