Slender annual or winter-annual from a short taproot, 1-5 dm, essentially glabrous throughout, producing a rosette of short, prostrate stems with assurgent tips, the lvs of which are mostly opposite or ternate and broader than those of the 1-several erect main stems, these with linear lvs 1-3.5 cm נ1-2.5 mm, all but sometimes the lowermost alternate; racemes nearly naked; cor rather light blue, the lower lip bearing 2 short white ridges that form a weakly developed palate barely closing the throat; fr 2-4 mm; seeds prismatic-angled; 2n=12. Mostly in sandy soil; Mass. and even Que. to Minn., s. to Fla. and Mex., and on the Pacific coast. Apr.-June. The common form in our range is var. canadensis, with the cor mostly 8-10 mm (exclusive of the 2-6 mm spur) and the seeds smooth or nearly so. The well marked var. texana (Scheele) Pennell, with larger fls (10-12 mm exclusive of the 5-9 mm spur) and densely tuberculate seeds, is more southern, barely reaching our range.
Gleason, Henry A. & Cronquist, Arthur J. 1991. Manual of vascular plants of northeastern United States and adjacent Canada. lxxv + 910 pp.