[1] It is native to much of southern central and western Canada, and the midwestern and western United States, from the Great Lakes region south to Texas, and west across the Great Plains to Idaho, Utah, and the Sierra Nevada in California.

[1] Androsace occidentalis is a diminutive annual herb reaching a maximum height of about 7 centimeters.

[2] It grows from a basal rosette of oblong hairy leaves no more than one or two centimeters long.

It produces an erect inflorescence which is an umbel atop a thin, naked peduncle.

The flowers have a white or pinkish five-lobed corolla inside a cup of pointed reddish sepals.