A charming little shrub, from six to ten inches tall, with gay flowers and dark yellowish-green leaves, standing out stiffly from the stem, like the bristles of a bottle-brush. The flowers are sweet-scented, nearly half an inch across, with reddish calyxes and pedicels and bright pink, saucer-shaped corollas, with from seven to ten, long, purple stamens, a purple pistil and crimson buds. This makes heathery patches on high mountain slopes, up to twelve thousand feet in the Sierra Nevadas.