Plants annual; taproot filiform to slender. Stems erect, dichot-omously branched, 3-40 cm, ultimate branches filiform, gla-brous. Leaves: stipules subulate to lanceolate, 0.5-4 mm, apex acuminate, entire; blade usually dotted or blotched, elliptic to obovate, 3-30 × 1-11 mm, herbaceous, apex acute to obtuse or cuspidate, glabrous. Cymes diffuse, flowers solitary (paired) in axils of leafy bracts. Flowers 5-merous, ± short-cylindric, with enlarged hypanthium and calyx cylindric, 0.9-1.3 mm, glabrous; sepals greenish to brownish, midrib and lateral pair of veins prominent, ovate to oblong, 0.5-1 mm, herbaceous, margins white to translucent, 0.03-0.1 mm wide, scarious, apex terminated by mucro, hood rounded-triangular, mucro triangular, 0.07-0.15 mm, glabrous; staminodes absent or indistinct; styles 2, 0.2-0.3 mm. Utricles ovoid to globose, ca. 0.5 mm, granular in distal 1/ 2, glabrous. Flowering spring-fall. Woodlands, thickets, fields, clearings, roadsides, waste places; 0-1300 m; Ont.; Ala., Ark., Conn., Del., D.C., Ga., Ill., Ind., Iowa, Kans., Ky., La., Md., Mass., Mich., Minn., Mo., Nebr., N.H., N.J., N.Y., N.C., Ohio, Okla., Pa., R.I., S.C., Tenn., Vt., Va., W.Va., Wis.