Authors: Michx.  

Botanical Description

Flatly mat-forming, the stems set with closely packed rosetted leaf tufts. Leaves 4-8mm long, awl-shaped to narrowly oblanceolate, bright green and red-flushed (at least in the wild), and pubescent at the base. Flowers solitary at the tips of the leaf tufts, each with a bell-shaped tube and five well spaced but round lobes, 6-8mm across, white from pink buds, spring to early summer. Later, the persistent sepals and seed pods flush red. P.b. var. brevifolia, see P. brevifolia. New Jersey to South Carolina, in the coastal pine-barrens in moist sand and humus.