Annual; herbage strongly glandular and sticky; stems 1-3.4 dm tall, erect, simple or branched at base, with simple setose, hirsute and multicellular glandular hairs; leaves lanceolate, serrate, dentate to shallowly lobed, 1-4 cm long, 0.5-2 cm wide, with basal leaf cluster especially apparent when young, leaves gradually reduced upward, the upper sessile or nearly so, the lower with petioles to 1.5 cm long; inflorescence of compound scorpioid cymes, setose, puberulent with multicellular stipitate glands; pedicels to 1 mm long; sepals elliptical to oblanceolate, more or less keeled at base, 3.5-6.5 mm long, 1.5-2 mm wide, setose, puberulent and stipitate-glandular; corolla of 5 united petals, rotate (appearing tubular in some pressed specimens), blue to light violet, 3-4 mm long and broad, pubescent; stamens and style exserted, style bifid 3/4 its length, lower 1/4 pubescent; capsule subglobose, 2.8-3.5 mm long, 2-2.5 mm wide, glandular and puberulent; mature seeds 4, elliptical to oblong (sometimes unequally so when one of the margins is involute), dark brown, 3-3.2 mm long, 1-1.3 mm wide, excavated and divided by prominent ridge, the ridge corrugated on one side, the margins corrugated, pitted and often one or both involute, dorsal surface smooth and shiny to somewhat dull, sometimes faintly pitted, the tip and margins darker for part of their length (or at least different in appearance from the rest of the dorsal surface). Flowers July to October, primarily late August and early September.