Leafy marsh-pink or rose-gentian

Sabatia dodecandra (Linnaeus) Britton, Sterns & Poggenburg var. foliosa (Fernald) Wilbur; S. harperi Small; S. obtusata S. F. Blake

Herbs perennial, stoloniferous. Stems several–many, scattered or loosely clustered, terete or distally 4-ridged but not angled or winged, 0.8–7(–10) dm, branching generally all or mostly alternate, rarely all opposite. Leaves basal absent at flowering time, internodes between cauline leaves generally less than 1.25 times as long as subtending leaves; blade ovate-lanceolate to elliptic or linear, 1.5–6 cm × 4–14(–20) mm. Inflorescences open, few-flowered monochasial cymes or solitary flowers at ends of branches; pedicels 10–70(–100) mm. Flowers 7–12(–14)-merous; calyx tube shallowly campanulate, 1.5–4 mm, mid- and commissural veins about equally prominent, 4-ridged; lobes linear to narrowly spatulate or ± foliaceous, 10–20 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, 12–30 × 3–10 mm, apex rounded to subacute; anthers coiling circinately. 2n = 38.

Flowering summer. Swamps, wet pine woods, shores, riverbanks, ditches, inland, nonsaline habitats; 0–100 m; Ala., Fla., Ga., La., Miss., S.C., Tex.

Sabatia foliosa has often been treated as a variety of S. dodecandra. Its recognition at specific status follows R. L. Wilbur (1970b) and J. D. Perry (1971). As the internodes of S. foliosa are generally less than 1.25 times as long as, and often shorter than, the subtending leaves, whereas those of S. dodecandra are mostly 1.25–3.5 times as long, this species has a more leafy appear­ance than S. dodecandra. The leaves of S. foliosa are thinner in texture than those of S. dodecandra; the apices of the mid-stem leaves of S. foliosa are usually obtuse and those of the distal leaves merely subacute, whereas the apices of the mid-stem and distal leaves of S. dodecandra are usually acute; and the corolla lobes of S. foliosa are proportionately narrower than those of S. dodecandra (M. L. Fernald 1902; Wilbur 1955). Because of its stoloniferous habit, S. foliosa often forms dense colonies, which S. dodecandra does not. Natural hybrids between these taxa are unknown, and artificial hybrids are sterile (Wilbur 1970b; Perry).