It is endemic to California, where it is known only from the Inner North Coast Ranges west of the Sacramento Valley.

It grows in grassland and chaparral and oak woodland habitat, often on serpentine soils.

It is an annual herb producing a slender, reddish stem coated in white hairs and measuring 10 to 15 centimeters tall.

The inflorescence is a head of flowers lined with glandular red bracts.

Each flower is about a centimeter long and has a white tubular throat and a five-lobed purple-blue corolla.