It is native to much of western North America from British Columbia to Arizona to Nebraska, where it grows in moist areas, generally with alkaline soils.

The inflorescence is an open array of flowers, each on a pedicel which may be several centimeters in length.

The flower has generally four or five white or pink lobes, each somewhat rolled to appear narrow in shape.

The botanist Charles Vancouver Piper, working from information provided by William Franklin Wight, published a paper in 1906 moving it to the Centaurium genus, where it was accepted for almost a century.

In 2004 Guilhem Mansion published a paper where it was reevaluated and renamed as Zeltnera exaltata.