Stems often 1-10, prostrate to trailing. Inflorescences axillary, solitary flowers. Pedicels straight to widely divergent, often hooked distally in fruit, 25-40 mm.  Petals 2- 4 times as long as sepals or absent. 2n = 44 (South America). Flowering spring-summer. Forests, limestone outcrops, moist hummocks, dunes; 0-200 m; Ala., Fla., Ga., La., Miss., N.C., S.C., Tenn., Tex., Va.; Mexico; Central America; South America. Variety lanuginosa occurs through much of Mexico, mostly in the mountainous areas. We find material from the southeastern United States to be indistinguishable from many Mexican specimens.

Variety longipedunculata was described from two populations in Georgia and represents plants with particularly long pedicels, 40-50 mm, but this range overlaps that found otherwise in var. lanuginosa.