Natives For Your Neighborhood
Conservation of rare plants, animals, and ecosystems

General Landscape Uses: Primarily recommended for natural landscapes and habitat restorations. Also wet wildflower and butterfly gardens.

Availability: Rarely grown by native plant nurseries.

Description: Small to medium herbaceous wildflower.

Dimensions: About 1-3 feet in height. Taller than broad.

Growth Rate: Moderate to fast.

Range: Southeastern United States west to Texas and south to the Monroe County Keys; West Indies, Mexico and Central America. Very rare in the Monroe County Keys and perhaps absent from the middle Keys.

 Map of select IRC data from peninsular Florida.

 Map of Postal Code Areas of IRC data from peninsular Florida.

Habitats: Marshes and wet pinelands.

Soils: Wet to moist, moderately well-drained to periodically inundated sandy, limestone, or organic soils, with or without humusy top layer.

Nutritional Requirements: Moderate; can grow in nutrient poor soils, but needs some organic content to thrive.

Salt Water Tolerance: Moderate; tolerates brackish water or occasional inundation by salt water.

Salt Wind Tolerance: Moderate; grows near salt water, but is protected from direct salt spray by other vegetation.

Drought Tolerance: Low; requires moist to wet soils and is intolerant of long periods of drought.

Light Requirements: Full sun.

Flower Color: Pale pink to rose.

Flower Characteristics: Semi-showy.

Flowering Season: Spring-summer.

Fruit: Inconspicuous achene.

Wildlife and Ecology: Nectar plant for gray hairstreak (Strymon melinus) and other butterflies. Attracts bee pollinators.

Horticultural Notes: Can be grown from seed.

Comments: Horticultural synonyms: P. rosea.