Short-flowered monkey flower is a slender annual with glandular-haired herbage with simple to much-branched stems from 5-20 cm high. The numerous small leaves range from 5-20 mm long and are narrowly elliptic or rhombic-elliptic in shape with entire to toothed margins. The base of the leaf tapers to a short petiole (some leaves may be sessile) and the blades are 3-5 nerved from the base.
The flowers are in the leaf axils, with 1 flower per axil. The pedicels are 1 cm long in flower, longer and ascending in fruit. The calyx is 3.5-5 mm long with short, equal but pointed teeth. The corolla is yellow with faint spots in the mouth. The tubular corolla is narrow, ranges from 4-7 mm long, and is slightly 2-lipped. The corolla lobes are roughly equal in shape and size with rounded tips.
Short-flowered monkey flower is a plant of open, drying streambeds, seeps and ponds.
Short-flowered monkey flower may be found east of the Cascade Mts. from Washington to central Oregon and east to northern Idaho (north of the Snake River Plains).
In the Columbia River Gorge, it may be found between the elevations of 0'-2000' between Beacon Rock in the west to Tom McCall Nature Preserve in the east and northwards in seeps of the slopes of the Klickitat River and its tributaries.