| Author | Nuttall | |
| Distribution | Throughout the southeastern Coastal Plain, from the SC state line northeastward to Tyrrell and Dare counties. It ranges inland to Pitt and Cumberland counties, but is not known from the Sandhills proper.
This is a somewhat scarce Coastal Plain species, occurring in NJ, and then from eastern NC to northern FL and west to eastern LA. | |
| Abundance | Uncommon to locally fairly common in some well-managed Longleaf Pine (Pinus palustris) wetlands in coastal counties north to Carteret County; mostly rare to locally uncommon elsewhere in the range. | |
| Habitat | This is wetland species of mostly well-maintained natural habitats, favoring fire-managed places. It is most often found in pine savannas, less often in wet pine flatwoods, openings and edges of pocosins, and similar acidic wetlands. |
| Phenology | Blooms from June to October, and fruits shortly after flowering. | |
| Identification | This is a slender species growing to about 10-12 inches tall, with somewhat long branches in the upper half. Like P. cruciata, the stem leaves are in several whorls of 4, though on the branches they can be alternate; each leaf is less than 1 inch long and very narrow. The racemes topping each branch are small and somewhat short, rounded with very densely packed small flowers. The flowers are light rose-purple in color. This species is most similar to P. cruciata, but it has the heads on long peduncles, often nearly 1 inch long, and the heads are mostly about 2/3-inch tall and somewhat less wide. Also, this species has noticeably longer branches than the other species, such that the racemes are more widely occurring than in P. cruciata, where the several heads grow close together. This species can be difficult to find unless you visit a well-burned pine savanna in a coastal county; it often grows in the same savannas as several others in the genus, such as P. cruciata, P. hookeri, P. lutea, and P. ramosa. | |
| Taxonomic Comments | None
| |
| Other Common Name(s) | Shortleaf Milkwort | |
| State Rank | S2? [S3] | |
| Global Rank | G4G5 | |
| State Status | | |
| US Status | | |
| USACE-agcp | FACW link |
| USACE-emp | FACW link |
