Plants annual; taproot filiform to slender. Stems erect, dichoto-mously branched, 5-50 cm, retrorsely to spreading- pubescent throughout. Leaves: stipules ovate-lanceolate, 2-6 mm, apex acuminate, entire; blade linear to linear-oblanceolate or linear-oblong, 3-25 × 1-2.3 mm, herbaceous, apex ± acute, moderately antrorsely puberulent. Cymes terminal and lateral, 15-50+-flowered, often forming large, congested clusters 5-30 mm wide. Flowers 5-merous, cylindric to narrowly lanceolate, with enlarged hypanthium and calyx cylindric to tapering distally, 2.3-3.5 mm, pubescent mostly proximal with hooked or usually straight hairs, sometimes with scattered straight hairs distally; sepals flecked or solid red-brown, white distally, midrib obscure, linear-lanceolate, 1.5-2 mm, papery, margins white, 0.1-0.2 mm wide, papery, apex terminated by mucro, hood obscure, narrowly rounded, mucro short-conic, ca. 0.1 mm, glabrous; staminodes filiform, widening proximally, 0.5-0.6 mm; style 1, cleft in distal 1/10. Utricles broadly ellipsoid to ± globose, 0.5-0.7 mm, smooth, glabrous.

Flowering late spring-fall. Woodlands, fields, clearings, roadsides, waste places; of conservation concern; 0-200 m; Fla., Ga.