White or small-flowered white meadow beauty

Caudices not developed; roots often long and rhizomelike, lignescent, non-tuberiferous. Stems mostly unbranched proximally, usually branched distally, 10–40 cm, faces subequal, angles weakly ridged, internodes glabrous or sparsely hirsute, hairs minutely gland-tipped, nodes hirsute, hairs eglandular. Leaves: petiole 1–5 mm; blade broadly ovate to elliptic, 1.5–3 cm ×4–8 mm, margins finely serrate, surfaces sparsely strigose. Inflorescences diffuse, not obscured by bracts. Flowers: hypanthium subglobose, much longer than the constricted neck, 5–7 mm, sparsely hirsute apically, hairs gland-tipped; calyx lobes triangular, apices short-acuminate; petals spreading, white or pale lavender, 0.8–1(–1.3) cm; anthers slightly curved, 3–3.5 mm. Seeds 0.6 mm, surfaces crested with irregular, roughly concentric, interrupted rows of laterally flattened tubercles, these in turn vertically grooved. 2n = 22.

Flowering Jul–Aug. Swamp and lime sinkpond margins, gum swamps, cypress-titi swamps and depressions, ditches, roadsides; 0–50 m; Ala., Fla., Ga.

Rhexia parviflora is known from ten counties in the Florida panhandle and one adjacent county each in Alabama (Geneva County) and Georgia (Baker County).