| Author | (Walter) Small | |
| Distribution | Essentially in the southern half of the Sandhills region, but present eastward into the middle Coastal Plain in Robeson County, and disjunctly to southern Columbus County and a recent specimen from Brunswick County (NCU). Not yet known from northern Sandhills counties -- Moore, Harnett, and Cumberland.
This is a Southern species, found in most counties in its range from southern NC to southern FL and west to eastern LA.
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| Abundance | Rare to uncommon in its six-county range in NC. This is a Significantly Rare species. | |
| Habitat | This is a species of sandy soil, found not just in pine/scrub oak sandhill communities but also in clearings, roadsides, and other sandy openings -- away from natural habitats. Several of the populations from the Sandhills Game Land in Richmond and Scotland counties occur in loamy sand of slight depressions or head-ends of former streamheads. |
| Phenology | Blooms from May to July, and fruits soon after flowering. | |
| Identification | This is a slender herb with a branch or two, from the base or upper portions, growing erect to about 12-15 inches tall. It has scattered, alternate leaves that are elliptical to oblanceolate, entire, to 1.5 inches long and 1/3 as wide. The top 3-4 inches of each branch is a terminal raceme of rosy-pink flowers, scattered along the axis; the spread of the two side wings is about 3/5-inch across. Thus, even though each flower is small, they are larger than most of the other Senega species. In essence, it looks like a small pink-flowered smartweed but in sandy or loamy sand soil. | |
| Taxonomic Comments | Until recently, this was included in the large genus Polygala, as P. grandiflora.
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| Other Common Name(s) | None | |
| State Rank | S2 | |
| Global Rank | G5? | |
| State Status | SR-P | |
| US Status | | |
| USACE-agcp | | |
| USACE-emp | | |
