Annual marsh-pink or sea-pink, saltmarsh-pink

Herbs annual or biennial. Stems single, terete or distally 4-angled, 0.2–5(–8) dm, branch­ing alternate. Leaves all cauline at flowering time; blade linear to elliptic or obovate, 0.5–6(–9) cm × (1–)2–10(–15) mm. Inflo­rescences open, few-flowered cymes or solitary flowers; pedi­cels (10–)40–100(–150) mm. Flowers (4- or)5-merous; calyx tube obconic to ± campanulate, 1.5–6 mm, mid­veins slightly more prominent than commissural veins, veins not ridged or midveins shallowly ridged proximally, lobes setaceous to linear, (4–)6–11(–22) mm; corolla pink or rarely white, eye yellow, projections of eye into corolla lobes 3-lobed, usually with a red border, tube 3–8 mm, lobes oblanceolate or narrowly to medium-widely spatulate-obovate or elliptic, 5–20 × 2–10 mm, apex rounded to obtuse; anthers coiling circinately. 2n = 36 + 0–4B.

Flowering summer–fall, year-round in Fla. Saltwater and brackish marshes, swales, ditches, and (in Fla.) sand barrens, restricted to coastal habitats north of Fla.; 0–30 m; Ala., Conn., Del., Fla., Ga., La., Md., Miss., N.J., N.Y., N.C., R.I., S.C., Va.; Mexico; West Indies (Bahamas).

The range of Sabatia stellaris extends to higher eleva­tions in Mexico.

Sabatia stellaris is known only historically from Massachusetts; although there is at least one correctly identified specimen, some reports from that state were based on misidentified specimens of S. angularis and perhaps S. campanulata (studies for this flora). Specimens from Pennsylvania have been reidenti­fied in studies for this flora as S. campanulata. The basis for an old, undocumented report of S. stellaris from Maine is unknown.

Specimens of Sabatia campanulata and S. stellaris are difficult to distinguish if lacking the basal parts, and misidentifications have led some botanists to consider these species as not distinguishable. The mid-stem leaves of S. campanulata, below the first branching, are usually narrowly oblong to oblong-lanceolate, widest near or proximal to the middle, and rounded at the base; those of S. stellaris, although variable in proportions, are usually widest distal to the middle and cuneate at the base. The calyces of S. campanulata are usually more than 0.8 times as long as and often longer than the corollas; those of S. stellaris are usually about 0.75 times as long as the corollas, but both species occasionally deviate from these proportions. The corolla lobes of S. stellaris are usually obovate and less than twice as long as wide. The two style branches (including the stigmas) of S. campanulata are slightly longer than the uncleft style below them; those of S. stellaris are much longer than the very short uncleft portion. In S. campanulata, the ultimate lateral (later-flowering) branches of the inflo­rescence usually bear a pair of bracts below a solitary true pedicel; in S. stellaris, the ultimate lateral branching usually, but not invariably, gives rise directly to true pedicels without bracts.