| Author | Gaertner | |
| Distribution | Scattered over most of the Mountains and Piedmont, and sparingly into the southwestern Coastal Plain, including in the Sandhills region. NOTE: Neither RAB (1968) nor NCU specimens verify records from the northeastern Piedmont. Thus, the cluster of records for the 6-county region from Person to Warren and south to Wake may refer to misidentified specimens of H. tenuifolia. They are retained on the range map only because the range in VA shows on the Digital Atlas of the Virginia Flora as occurring in nearly all counties in southern VA along the NC state line. Thus, the northeastern piedmont is surely within the overall species range.
This species has a very wide range, occurring from Canada south to western FL and OK, generally absent on the Coastal Plains except in Sandhills areas. | |
| Abundance | Generally uncommon to infrequent in the southern Mountains and most of the Piedmont, including the Sandhills region of the Coastal Plain. Generally rare in the north-central and northeastern Piedmont (where the status is unsettled), and maybe absent in the northern mountains. | |
| Habitat | This is a species of dry soil, often rather sandy. It occurs around rock outcrops, opening in dry woods and wooded borders, and in pine/scrub oak sandhills in the Sandhills region. It shows no affinity to circumneutral soil that the similar H. tenuifolia does. |
| Phenology | Blooms from June to August, and fruits soon after flowering | |
| Identification | This is a slender species, with several stems from a common base, growing to about 8 inches tall. Basal leaves are absent at flowering time, and thus the stem leaves are opposite, scattered, sessile, and linear to more often oblong, about 1.5 inches long and about 1/8-inch wide -- wider than in the very slender H. tenuifolia. At the end of each stem is a short branched inflorescence of cymes, with each flower being a bit tubular with flared lobes, white to very light lavender-white, about 1/4-inch long and wide at the 4 spreading petals. The similar and easily confused H. tenuifolia has leaves narrower, needle-like and barely 1/10-inch wide, and the flowers are on longer pedicels, about 2/5-inch long as opposed to nearly sessile in H. longifolia. Though neither is scarce in the state, be careful separating these two, as both grow in dry and typically sandy soil, often near rocks. | |
| Taxonomic Comments | Weakley (2018) lists two varieties -- the main one in the state being var. compacta, and var. glabra, which is limited to the southwestern mountains.
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| Other Common Name(s) | Longleaf Summer Bluet | |
| State Rank | S3 [S3S4] | |
| Global Rank | G5 | |
| State Status | | |
| US Status | | |
| USACE-agcp | | |
| USACE-emp | | |
