Upper flowers - Corolla purple, (rarely white), 5-lobed, +1.5cm broad. Lobes to 9mm long, with few stiff hairs on midvein below, otherwise glabrous. Stamens 5. Filaments flattened and expanded at base and divided above. Anthers yellow, 2mm long. Style 1, 7mm long, clavate, purple at apex, pubescent. Stigma 3-lobed. Ovary inferior. Fruit many seeded. Calyx 5-lobed. Tube to +/-4mm long. Lobes attenuate, 6-7mm long, 2mm broad at base, glabrous with stigillose margins.

Lower flowers - Calyx tube to 5mm long. Calyx lobes to 3mm long.

Flowering - April - August.

Habitat - Waste places, disturbed sites, pastures, prairies, roadsides, railroads.

Origin - Native to U.S.

Other info. - This species is common and unmistakable because of the perfoliate leaves. The lower (cleistogamous) flowers are fertile but produce very little viable seed. The upper(chasmogamous) flowers produce much more viable seed.
The typical form of the plant is form perfoliata, having the blue flowers. Steyermark also lists a white flowered form, form alba (Voigt) Steyermark.

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