[Wikipedia] Habitat, Botany, Ecology: Habitat The plant grows in several types of habitat, including disturbed and cultivated areas. It has a weak affinity for serpentine soils,[3] growing from sea-level to 5000'. Botany It is an annual herb producing a slender, reddish stem up to 30 centimeters tall with an inflorescence of widely spaced nodes bearing one to three flowers each. The flower has very long, pointed sepals and purple, lavender, or occasionally white flowers. The fruit is a spherical, red-spotted capsule growing deep within the long sepals. Ecology Colinsia sparsiflora has been found to host discrete populations of Acaulospora AM fungi (AMF (ecology)) on serpentine soil, Glomus on non-serpentine soil types. (link added by Mary Ann Machi)