[1] It is a petite annual herb producing short stems just a few centimeters tall, surrounded by hairy, needle-lobed leaves.

The inflorescence, which often appears to sit directly on the ground tucked amidst the leaves, is a cluster of funnel-shaped flowers about a centimeter wide.

[3] The proportions of each color remain quite stable over time and in some locations there are sharp transitions from blue to white flowered populations.

[4] For many decades a long line of geneticists and botanists, including Sewall Wright, Carl Epling, Harlan Lewis and T. G. Dobzhansky, have studied populations of this flower to determine the factors that influence this polymorphism.

Wright built his isolation by distance and Shifting Balance theories on genetic drift in this flower using data collected by Epling and Dobzhansky in the Mojave Desert.