It grows in mountain habitat in areas of alpine climate, such as meadows and next to streams of snowmelt.

It is a perennial herb which spends most of the year in a dormant state in order to save water, and rarely flowers.

[2] It produces a small gray-green basal rosette of toothed oval leaves up to about 4 centimeters long.

When it does bloom, it sends up an erect inflorescence on a peduncle several centimeters tall topped with a cluster of flowers.

Each flower has five sepals, five small white petals, and a clump of whiskery stamens at the center.