Elegant or narrow-leaved rose-gentian

Herbs annual, biennial, or occa­sionally short-lived perennial. Stems usually single, rarely 2 or 3, proximally terete, distally 4-angled but not winged, 1.5–7 dm, branching all opposite or distally all or partly alternate. Leaves cauline and usually also basal present at flowering time; basal blades spatulate; cauline blades oblong to lanceolate, 1–3(–5) cm × 3–10(–16) mm. Inflorescences open cymes or thyrses; pedicels 1–8(–13) mm. Flowers 5-merous; calyx tube turbinate to campanulate, 1–4 mm, mid- and commissural veins about equally promi­nent, with low, narrow ridges, lobes linear-subulate, (4–)6–10(–15) mm; corolla pink or rarely white, eye greenish yellow, projections of eye into corolla lobes triangular, usually with a dark red border, tube 3–6 mm, lobes oblanceolate to narrowly spatulate-obovate, 5–20 × 2–8 mm, apex obtuse to subacute; anthers coiling circinately. 2n = 32.

Flowering late spring–summer. Open, wet or occa­sionally dry sandy woods, savannas, fields, roadsides; 0–500 m; Ala., Ark., Ga., La., Miss., Mo., N.C., S.C., Tenn., Va.