Flower:

Single flowers at the tips of branching stems. Flowers are pink to lavender (rarely white), ½ to ¾ inch across with (usually) 5 petals that have several small teeth at the tip. At the base of a petal is a column with short stamens and a long protruding style with a divided, arching tip.

The bracts are green, hairless, and in 2 layers, the outer short and unequal in length, the inner long and narrow, forming a column up to ¾ inch long.

Leaves and stems:

Lower leaves are stiff, linear, ½ to 2 inches long, less than 1/8 inch wide, toothless, hairless, pointed at the tip, and stalkless, becoming smaller as they ascend the stem and reduced to scales in the upper plant. Stems are green, stiff, hairless and much branched, the branches mostly erect to ascending.

Fruit:

Fruit is a dry seed with a tuft of white to light brown hairs to carry it off in the wind.

Notes:

While Skeletonweed is not uncommon, it is easily overlooked when flowers are not opened, the spindly, seemingly leafless stems inconspicuous in surrounding vegetation, though it can take on a somewhat bushy appearance from its numerous branches. It is often seen with round galls along the stems, made by a small wasp. Similar is the rare Annual Skeletonweed (Shinnersoseris rostrata), which has much longer, broader leaves that wither away, and flowers with 6 or more petals that lack the teeth at the tip and do not spread fully open.