Slender marsh-pink or rose-gentian, savannah or campanulate sabatia

Chironia campanulata Linnaeus, Sp. Pl. 1: 190. 1753; C. gracilis Michaux; Sabatia campanulata var. gracilis (Michaux) Fernald

Herbs perennial, not stolonifer­ous. Stems 1–many, clustered, terete or distally 4-ridged but not angled or winged, 1.5–6(–9) dm, branching all or mostly alternate. Leaves all cauline at flowering time; blade narrowly lanceolate or oblong (proximal) to linear (all or distal), 1–4 cm × 1–7(–12) mm. Inflorescences open, few-flowered cymes or solitary flowers at ends of branches; pedicels (20–)40–70(–90) mm. Flowers 5-merous; calyx tube turbinate to shallowly campanulate, 1–3 mm, mid- and commissural veins about equally prominent, not or low-ridged, lobes setaceous to narrowly linear; corolla pink or rarely white, eye yellow, projections of eye into corolla lobes oblong, usually with a red border, tube 2–6 mm, lobes oblanceolate, 6–24 × 3–9(–11) mm, apex obtuse; anthers coiling circinately. 2n = 34.

Flowering summer–early fall. Freshwater marshes, bogs, wet pine savannas, wet fields, ditches; 0–700 m; Ala., Ark., Del., D.C., Fla., Ga., Ky., La., Md., Mass., Miss., N.J., N.Y., N.C., S.C., Tenn., Tex., Va.

Sabatia campanulata formerly occurred in Indiana and Pennsylvania, but there are no recent records from those states.

The differences upon which varieties of Sabatia campanulata have been based appear largely to be pheno­typic responses to seasonal phenomena and con­di­tions of the habitat. They exhibit less correlation with geo­graphic distribution than some authors have indi­cated (R. L. Wilbur 1955).

There is a record of a hybrid of Sabatia campanulata with S. kennedyana.