Its preferred habitat is dry, sandy soils in sagebrush and bitterbrush vegetation.

[citation needed] An annual species, 2 to 10 cm tall, bearing 1 to 20 yellow flowers.

The flower is typically 0.5 to 1 inch wide, yellow with yellow hairs and tiny red dots on the palate and a large red dot on the lower limb.

[2] In small plants, the flower is often larger than the leaves and stem.

Sereno Watson first described this species as "A pretty dwarf flower of earliest spring, forming bright patches of color among the sage-brush in the lower valleys, the delicate inch-long stem seeming scarce able to sustain the absurdly disproportionate flowers that terminate it.