Racemes: terminal cluster of sterile flowers dark purple. Flowers: sepals of fertile ones purple or purplish; petals purplish white. Fruit valves glabrate or sparsely to, rarely, densely hispid. 2n = 28.

Flowering Mar-May. Steep scree or talus slopes of serpentine or Franciscan formation, openings in chaparral, oak woodland; 300-1100 m; Calif.

Subspecies insignis is known from Fresno, Merced, Monterey, and San Benito counties.