It is endemic to California, where it grows in the Central Coast Ranges through the Transverse Ranges and into the Mojave Desert, as well as in the Central Valley.

It grows in a variety of habitat types, generally on clay and sandy soils.

This is a slender annual herb producing flowering stems up to about 30 centimeters tall surrounded at the bases by woolly oval leaves.

The inflorescence is a wide open array of branches lined with clusters of white or pink flowers.

Each flower has lobes only about a millimeter long which are wider at the tips.