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Erect or decumbent herb, 1-5 dm tall, loosely and ascendingly branched; stems minutely and antrorsely hairy; leaves densely and minutely hairy, usually somewhat velvety, the hairs with thickened bulbose bases, elliptic to ovate or obovate, to 5 cm long and 3 cm wide, apex obtuse, base abruptly contracted into a slender petiole to 25 mm long; inflorescence a simple or forked scorpioid cyme, becoming as much as 1 dm long at maturity, borne on a naked peduncle 1-5 cm long, terminal on the leafy branches or extra-axillary along their length; calyx sessile, at anthesis about 2 mm long, hairy, the lobes subequal, lanceolate, persistent and spreading or reflexed after the fall of the mericarps; corolla white or somewhat bluish, yellow in the throat, minutely hairy outside, about 3.5 mm long, the limb 2-3.5 mm broad, with short rounded ascending lobes and strong reflexed pleats at and below the sinus.
Erect or ascending annual 2–5 dm; stems closely hairy below, becoming hirsute above; lvs elliptic, 3–6 cm, long-petioled; spikes in peduncled groups of 2–5, eventually 4–10 cm, the axis and sep densely white-hirsute; cor white, 2–4 mm wide; fr depressed-ovoid or globose, 1.5–3 mm, soon splitting into 4 1-seeded nutlets; 2n=24, 32. Native of s. Europe, established as a weed in s. U.S. and occasionally in our range n. to Mass.
A herb. It grows each year from seed. It grows 20-50 cm tall. The leaves are narrowly oval and 2-4 cm long by 1-2.5 cm wide. They are grey-green and hairy underneath.
