The species occurs from Alberta and Quebec south through most of our eastern and Midwestern states, and west to eastern Texas. Pale-spike lobelia is an unbranched plant about one to two feet tall. Ten to twenty bluish-white flowers are scattered along the upper half of the thin, nearly leafless stem. At the base of the stem is a cluster or rosette of club-shaped leaves about two inches long. Roots are fibrous and perennial.
Fruits are tiny, round capsules filled with chestnut-brown seeds.
Look for this plant in moist or low prairie that is not heavily grazed or regularly mowed for hay. All the lobelias contain a poisonous substance that was formerly used in various medicinal preparations and as an agent to discourage the use of tobacco. Pale-spike lobelia was first described for science in 1791 by the renowned French naturalist Jean Baptiste de Lamarck.