Stems few to many in clumps, often glabrous basally, viscid-pubescent or ± scabrous distally. Leaf blades 1-4.5 × 0.4-3.5 cm. Inflorescences ± thyrselike, often narrow; involucres in clusters on short branches along main axis after first few dichotomous branches, 5-9 mm; bracts 30-70% connate, lobes ovate or ovate-oblong, base often 50-70% of height, apex obtuse or acute. Flowers: perianth usually pink, lavender, or magenta, rarely white. Fruits dark to pale gray-brown and mottled with dark gray-brown, tan, or red-brown, sometimes also faintly and irregularly pale striped, ovoid, 3-5 × 2.7-3.7 mm.

Flowering ± year-round, most vigorously in spring. Brush or open woodlands, banks, bluffs, open hillsides, washes; 0-1800 m; Calif.; Mexico (Baja California, Baja California Sur).

In recent floras Mirabilis laevis var. crassifolia has been treated as M. californica or M. laevis. The California specimen of M. tenuiloba var. polyphylla (Standley) J. F. Macbride cited by Macbride (1918) [M. polyphylla (Standley) Standley] is considered to be M. laevis var. crassifolia. It has fruiting involucres at the upper range of its length, similar to some plants from the Channel Islands. In Baja California, indigenous peoples have used the plants of var. crassifolia to alleviate stomach ailments.