Annual (?or biennial) with slender taproot; hairs glandular and eglandular. Stems erect or ascending from leafy rosette, 1–20 cm long. Leaves 5–18 mm long, 3–5(–7) mm wide; lower leaves oblanceolate, petioles to 5 mm long; upper leaves sessile, broadly ovate-elliptic. Inflorescence lax, few-flowered; bract margins broadly scarious. Flowers 5-merous; fruiting pedicels longer than capsule, at first deflexed, later erect; calyx glandular-pilose, sepals ovate, 2.5–5 mm long, acute, margins narrowly to broadly scarious; petals slightly to one-third shorter than sepals, emarginate, rarely bifid; styles 5. Capsule slightly curved, 4.5–7 mm long; seeds pale yellowish-brown, finely but bluntly tuberculate, 0.4–0.5 mm diam. Flowers Oct.