Bartram’s marsh-pink or rose-gentian

Chironia decandra Walter, Fl. Carol., 93. 1788; Sabatia bartramii Wilbur; S. dodecandra (Linnaeus) Britton, Sterns & Poggenburg var. coriacea (Elliott) H. E. Ahles

Herbs perennial, not stolon­iferous. Stems single, terete, 2.5–8(–10) dm, branching all or mostly alternate. Leaves basal and cauline usually present at flowering time; basal blades oblanceolate to spatulate, 4–10 cm × 9–25 mm; cauline blades abruptly differentiated, linear to lanceolate, 1.5–5(–6.5) cm × 1–8(–15) mm. Inflorescences: flowers solitary or paired at ends of branches; pedicels (30–)80–120 mm. Flowers 8–12(–14)-merous; calyx tube shallowly campanulate, (2–)3–4(–8) mm, mid- and commissural veins about equally prominent, not ridged; lobes narrowly linear to subulate, 4–20 mm; corolla pink or rarely white, eye yellow, projections of eye into corolla lobes oblong, usually with a red border, tube 5–9 mm, lobes narrowly spatulate-obovate, 16–35 × 5–12 mm, apex rounded to obtuse; anthers coiling circinately. 2n = 36.

Flowering summer–early fall. Wet pine savannas, cypress woods, pond margins, ditches, sometimes in shallow water; 0–100 m; Ala., Fla., Ga., Miss., S.C.

As well as differing as indicated in the descriptions, Sabatia decandra differs from sympatric related species in its thickened calyx lobes, which are semicircular in cross section rather than thin and flat, and in having cauline leaves usually no wider than the diameter of the stem.

Sabatia decandra has generally been called S. bartramii in recent years. No specimen associated with the original description of Chironia decandra by Walter is known to exist, and R. L. Wilbur (1955) con­cluded that Walter’s description of C. decandra did not suffice to indicate unequivocally to which species he had applied the name. D. B. Ward (2007) neotypified the name C. decandra with a specimen of the species to which the name S. decandra is applied here.