Annuals or biennials; with a fine taproot; densely pubescent, trichomes (sessile or short-stalked), 4-6-rayed, rays usually furcate, rarely bifurcate, (moderately tuberculate or nearly smooth). Stems simple or few to several from base, erect, (often distal 1/2 branched), to 6 dm. Basal leaves: blade oblanceolate, to 9 cm, margins entire, dentate, or sinuate to lyrate-pinnatifid. Cauline leaves: (proximal shortly petiolate, distal sessile); blade narrowly elliptic to linear, 2-4(-6) cm, margins entire or repand to shallowly dentate. Racemes loose. Fruiting pedicels (divaricate-ascending to widely spreading, straight), 8-20 mm. Flowers: sepals elliptic or elongate-ovate, 3.4-5.2(-6.5) mm, (lateral pair subsaccate, median pair thickened apically, cucullate); petals obovate or deltate, 5-10 mm, (sometimes with short claw, margins undulate). Fruits globose or subglobose, sometimes slightly compressed, 3-6 mm; valves (not retaining seeds after dehiscence), densely papillose, densely pubescent inside, trichomes raised; replum as wide as or wider than fruit; ovules 8-18 per ovary; style 1.5-3.5 mm. Seeds flattened. 2n = 12.

Flowering and fruiting Apr-Jun. Limestone chip, black soils, grassy roadsides, fields, limestone, oak woodlands, mesquite brush lands, pastures, open dry hills; 30-700 m; Tex.