Perennial or large marsh-pink, perennial sea-pink, giant or marsh rose-gentian

Chironia dodecandra Linnaeus, Sp. Pl. 1: 190. 1753; Sabatia chloroides (Michaux) Pursh

Herbs perennial; stolons absent or weakly developed. Stems 1–several, clustered, terete or distally 4-ridged but not angled or winged, 0.8–6 dm, branching all or mostly alternate. Leaves basal absent at flowering time, internodes between cau­line leaves mostly 1.25+ times as long as subtending leaves; blade elliptic- or oblong-lanceolate, 1.5–7 cm × 4–12(–16) mm. Inflorescences open, few-flowered monochasia or solitary flowers at ends of branches; pedicels 10–90(–110) mm. Flowers 7–12(–14)-merous; calyx tube obconic to campanulate, 1.5–4 mm, mid- and commissural veins about equally prominent, 4-ridged; lobes linear to oblong-lanceolate or occasionally nar­rowly spatulate or ± foliaceous, 4–20 mm; corolla purplish pink or rarely white, eye yellow, projections of eye into corolla lobes oblong, sometimes shallowly 3-lobed, usually with a red border, tube (3–)4–8 mm, lobes oblanceolate to narrowly spatulate-obovate, (10–)12–25 × 3–11 mm, apex rounded to subacute; anthers coiling circinately. 2n = 34 + 8B.

Flowering summer–fall. Saltwater, brackish, or rarely freshwater marshes; 0–10 m; Conn., Del., Fla., Ga., Md., N.J., N.Y., N.C., S.C., Va.

There are historical records of Sabatia dodecandra from Connecticut and New York. Reports from west of the range given here have been based on a concept of the species that included S. foliosa.