Herbs annual or biennial. Stems usually numerous, rarely single, crowded, diffuse, much branched at base, 5-30 cm tall, short strigose. Basal leaves rosulate, petiolate, spatulate, 2-5 cm, strigose, base cuneate to attenuate, apex rounded to obtuse; upper stem leaves sessile or short petiolate, oblong to elliptic. Inflorescences terminal, circinate when young, gradually elongated, 5-20 cm; basal 2 or 3 flowers with leaflike bracts. Pedicel to 3-5 mm after anthesis, apex thickened, clavate in fruit. Calyx lobes ovate, 1-3 mm, apex acute. Corolla light blue or pink; throat appendages white or yellowish; limb 1.5-2.5 mm; lobes divaricate, obovate, apex rounded to obtuse. Anthers ovate, ca. 0.3 mm, apex mucronate. Nutlets oblique subulate, trigonous-tetrahedral, 0.8-1 mm, short pubescent or glabrous, adaxial 2 lateral surfaces subequal, bottom surface smaller and convex; abaxial surfaces triangular-ovate, acutely 3-ribbed; carpophore ca. 1 mm, curved. Fl. early.

Hillsides, meadows, forest margins, thickets, fields, waste areas. Fujian, Gansu, N Guangxi, Hebei, Heilongjiang, Jiangxi, Jilin, Liaoning, Nei Mongol, Ningxia, Shaanxi, Shandong, Shanxi, Xinjiang, Xizang, Yunnan [temperate Asia, E Europe]