_Sabbatia angularis_
_Flowers_--Clear rose pink, with greenish star in centre, rarely white,
fragrant, 1-1/2 in. broad or less, usually solitary on long peduncles at
ends of branches. Calyx lobes very narrow; corolla of 5 rounded
segments; stamens 5; style 2-cleft. _Stem:_ Sharply 4-angled, 2 to 3 ft.
high, with opposite branches, leafy. _Leaves:_ Opposite, 5-nerved, oval
tapering at tip, and clasping stem by broad base.
_Preferred Habitat_--Rich soil, meadows, thickets.
_Flowering Season_--July-August.
_Distribution_--New York to Florida, westward to Ontario, Michigan, and
Indian Territory.
During the drought of midsummer the lovely Rose Pink blooms inland with
cheerful readiness to adapt itself to harder conditions than most of its
moisture-loving kin will tolerate; but it may be noticed that although
we may often-times find it growing in dry soil, it never spreads in
such luxuriant clusters as when the roots are struck beside meadow
runnels and ditches. Probably the plant would be commoner than it is
about populous Eastern districts were it not so much sought by
herb-gatherers for use as a tonic medicine.
It was the Centaurea, represented here by the blue Ragged Sailor of
gardens, and not our Centaury, a distinctly American group of plants,
which, Ovid tells us, cured a wound in the foot of the Centaur Chiron,
made by an arrow hurled by Hercules.
* * * * *
Three exquisite members of the Sabbatia tribe keep close to the Atlantic
Coast in salt meadows and marshes, along the borders of brackish rivers,
and very rarely in the sand at the edges of fresh-water ponds a little
way inland. From Maine to Florida they range, and less frequently are
met along the shores of the Gulf of Mexico so far as Louisiana. How
bright and dainty they are! Whole meadows are radiant with their
blushing loveliness. Probably if they consented to live far away from
the sea, they would lose some of the deep, clear pink from out their
lovely petals, since all flowers show a tendency to brighten their
colors as they approach the coast. In England some of the same wild
flowers we have here are far deeper-hued, owing, no doubt, to the fact
that they live on a sea-girt, moisture-laden island, and also that the
sun never scorches and blanches at the far north as it does in the
United States.
The Sea or Marsh Pink or Rose of Plymouth (_S. stellaris_), whose
graceful alternate branching stem attains a height of two feet only
under most favorable conditions, from July to September opens a
succession of pink flowers that often fade to white. The yellow eye is
bordered with carmine. They measure about one inch across, and are
usually solitary at the ends of branches, or else sway on slender
peduncles from the axils. The upper leaves are narrow and bract-like;
those lower down gradually widen as they approach the root.