Plants 14-90 cm. Stems attenuate toward tuberoid, fistulous, 1-8 mm diam. distal to leaves; bracts 3-12. Leaves erect-spreading; blade 9-20(-27) × 1.5-3.1 cm. Inflorescences sparsely flowered, (3-)10-40(-56) cm; rachis at least as long as peduncle; bracts 3-16 mm. Flowers green, fragrance nocturnal, honeylike; sepals 2.3-4 × 1.2-2.5 mm; dorsal sepal spreading to recurved, oblong to ovate; lateral sepals lanceolate to oblong; petals projecting to ± erect-spreading, asymmetrically triangular-ovate, 2.6-3.8 × 1.2-2 mm; lip deflexed, triangular-ovate, 1.6-4 × 1.6-3.5 mm; spur horizontal to deflexed, narrowly cylindric, 3-6(-9) mm; viscidia ovate to oblong, 0.35-0.6 × 0.2-0.4 mm; rostellum blunt. Capsules 4-12 mm. Seeds blackish brown.

Flowering Mar--May. Chaparral and coastal scrub; 0--1500 m; Calif.; Mexico (Baja California).

Piperia cooperi and P. michaelii have very similar flowers, and their blackish brown seeds are unique in the genus. A few specimens from the Santa Monica Mountains, California, described as P. lancifolia Rydberg, have flowers with spurs of intermediate length (6-9 mm).