Savannah or smooth meadow beauty

Caudices developed, spongy; roots short, fibrous, lignescent, non-tuberiferous. Stems mostly unbranched, 6–11(–20) cm, faces equal, terete proximally, distal internodes somewhat flattened in a plane parallel to subtending leaf pair, longitu­dinally striate, narrower bands paler and aligned with leaf midribs, internodes and nodes glabrous. Leaves subsessile; blade lanceolate-ovate to lanceolate or elliptic, 3.5–7.5 cm × 4–15 mm, margins entire or subentire, teeth low, remote, blunt, not bristle-tipped, surfaces glabrous. Inflorescences diffuse, not obscured by bracts. Flowers: hypanthium subglobose to ovoid, longer than the constricted neck, 7.5–10 mm, hirsute, hairs gland-tipped; calyx lobes triangular, apices narrowed to linear-oblong extensions; petals spreading, lavender-rose, 2–2.5 cm; anthers curved, 7–8 mm. Seeds cuneate-prismatic, 1–2 mm, surfaces nearly smooth. 2n = 22.

Flowering May–Sep. Pine flatwoods and savannas, pine-palmetto, pine-hardwood, pine-cypress, gum-maple flats, bogs, seeps, swamp and pocosin margins, ditches, roadsides, sandy peat; 0–50 m; Ala., Fla., Ga., La., Miss., N.C., S.C., Tex.