Plants glabrous, glaucous. Stems 20-100 cm. Leaf blades 2-10 cm, base cuneate to cordate. Cymes open, 16-50(-100)-flowered. Pedicels (5-)10-30(-55) mm. Flowers: calyx 9-17 mm, with 5 prominent, usually green, winged angles or ridges, each ridge with strong, cordlike marginal vein; petals with claw 8-14 mm, blade 3-8 mm. Capsules included in calyx tube. Seeds 2-2.5 mm wide. 2n = 30. Flowering spring-summer. Fields, waste places; 0-2400 m; introduced; Alta., B.C., Man., N.B., N.S., Ont., Que., Sask., Yukon; Ala., Alaska, Ariz., Ark., Calif., Colo., Conn., Del., D.C., Fla., Idaho, Ill., Ind., Iowa, Kans., Ky., La., Maine, Md., Mass., Mich., Minn., Miss., Mo., Mont., Nebr., Nev., N.H., N.J., N.Mex., N.Y., N.Dak., Ohio, Okla., Oreg., Pa., R.I., S.C., S.Dak., Tenn., Tex., Utah, Vt., Va., Wash., W.Va., Wis., Wyo.; Eurasia; widely naturalized elsewhere. If the genus Vaccaria is treated as monotypic, V. hispanica then includes four subspecies, and our material is subsp. hispanica. Vaccaria hispanica still occasionally is included in Saponaria (e.g., F. Swink and G. S. Wilhelm 1994). Once a common weed of grain fields (like Agrostemma githago), it is now increasingly rare or has been extirpated in many localities; the distribution stated above may be the historical maximum, rather than current, North American distribution. The saponin-containing seeds of this species are poisonous upon ingestion.

Plant: Annual (8)20-100 cm, glabrous, glaucous, taprooted Leaves: simple, 2-12 cm; petiole present or 0; blade lanceolate to ovate, base rounded to cordate-clasping; veins 3-7 INFLORESCENCE: cyme, terminal, 10-70-flowered +, ± flat-topped; bracts leafy; pedicels 5-40+ mm Flowers: sepals 5, fused, glabrous, tube prominent, 7.5-17 mm, 1.5-9 mm diam, cylindric to urn-shaped, 5-angled or 5-keeled, veins 10, teeth 1.5-3 mm, < tube, ovate to triangular; petals 5, 15-25 mm, claw long, blade oblanceolate to obovate, entire or obcordate, pink to reddish; styles 2, 9-21 mm Fruit: Fruit: capsule, ovoid; stalk 0.5-1 mm; teeth 4, ascending to recurved; Seeds many, 1.6-1.8 mm, ± spheric; tubercles fine, low, reddish brown to black Misc: Fields, disturbed areas; < 2800 m.; May-Aug