Annual or short-lived herb with a short rootstock and a persistent taproot with numerous adventitious roots. Leaves all basal in a rosette. Ascending to erect, oblanceolate to narrow-oblong, 6–10 cm long, 0.4–1.5 (–2.5) cm wide, obtuse, pubescent on both surfaces, dentate but sometimes obscurely so, 3-veined, tapering to an indistinct petiole and a broadened base obscuring an axillary tuft of short white hairs. Scapes to 20 cm tall, pubescent with antrorse-appressed hairs. Spikes 2–10 cm long. Bracts oblong-elliptic, concave, 1.5–1.8 mm long, with a + keeled and glabrous or pubescent carina ½ to 2/3 of the width; the carina pale to dark brown but not glossy. Sepals subequal, elliptic, 1.5–2 mm long, with a broad carina similar to that of the bracts but more distinctly angled. Corolla: tube 1.5–2 mm long; lobes ovate to broad ovate, 1 mm long. Style 3–4 mm long. Ovary bilocular, one loculus with 2 ovules, the other with 3 with the uppermost separated from the lower 2 by a swelling of the placenta. Capsule ovoid, (2.8–) 3–3.5 mm long, the upper hardened portion terminated by a short conical beak. Seeds up to 5; lower seeds pale brown, elliptic, 1 mm long, with a mucilaginous outer layer; apical seed darker, smaller, contained in the beak and with a thinner mucilaginous layer.
Temporarily moist open sites in grassland, woodland and saltbush plains, mostly on heavy clay soils.
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