Scape 10-25 cm, slender. Flowers 14-24 mm; perianth bluish violet, rotate, tube urceolate, strongly constricted above ovary, 6-8 mm, opaque, not splitting in fruit, lobes spreading, 9-19 mm, inner 4-5 mm wide; filaments 1-2 mm, base not triangular, with narrow abaxial wings, appendages absent; anthers linear, 3-4 mm, apex notched into V; staminodia erect, held close to stamens, white, broad, 6-8 mm, margins 3/4 involute, apex notched; ovary 4-5 mm; style 7-9 mm; pedicel 1-3 cm. 2n = 24, 32, 48.

Flowering spring (Jun). Open foothill woodlands, often on serpentine; 100--600 m; Calif.

Brodiaea purdyi is very similar to B. minor and might be just a subspecies of it.