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Herb, annual, grey-pubescent throughout. Stem erect, simple, or sometimes basally few-branched, 10–16 (–25) cm high. Leaves sessile, linear-lanceolate, with basal and cauline leaves similar, 20–30 mm long, 0.3–2.5 mm wide. Inflorescence 5–30-flowered; bracts herbaceous. Pedicels 5–25 mm long. Calyx cylindrical-oblong, becoming ovoid in fruit, to 15 mm long, 30-veined, shortly puberulent, glandular or eglandular; calyx lobes c. 33% of calyx length, acuminate. Petal limb obcordate, 3–5 mm long, white, pink or purplish. Styles 3. Capsule obovoid-conical, 7–12 mm long, opening with 6 teeth; carpophore 0–2 mm long, glabrous. Seeds subdiscoid, 0.6–1 mm diam., pruinose, bluntly tuberculate; rim obtusely grooved.
Erect annual 2–5 dm, the stems puberulent below, glandular above; lvs linear to narrowly lanceolate or oblanceolate, 2–5 cm × 1.5–6 mm; fls 5–13; pedicels 1–3 cm; cal ca 30-nerved, eventually 12–17 × 5–7 mm, the lobes attenuate, 5–7 mm; pet white to reddish, conspicuously surpassing the cal, the blade 3–6 mm, shallowly 2-lobed, the appendages 1–2 mm, deeply 2-lobed; fr 8–10 mm, 3-locular at the base; seeds 0.6–0.9 mm wide; 2n=20. Native of Eurasia, sparingly intr. as a weed of waste places mainly along our Atlantic coast, but also inland to Mich. May–July.
