Little Leaf Milkwort

Polygala brevifolia Nutt. Gen. 2: 89. 1818
Slender erect annual, 2.6 dm. high or less, glanduliform-puberulent above; leaves in whorls of 4 or 5 throughout or the uppermost scattered, linear-elliptic or linear, or the lower spatulate or even orbicular, 6-21 mm. long, 1-5 mm. wide, rounded or obtuse, usually apiculate, narrowed at base, spreading or ascending, slightly revolute; peduncles 8 cm. long or less; racemes ovoid or cylindric, at first slightly apiculate, soon obtuse, dense, 7-12 mm. thick, the axis 1-4.3 cm. long; bracts triangular-ovate, ciliate, spreading, persistent, 1 mm. long; pedicels 1.8-2.5 mm. long; flowers rosy-purplish; sepals ovate-oval or ovate, obtuse or acutish, ciliolate, 1.1—1.7 mm. long; wings triangular-ovate to oblong-ovate, 2.8-3.2 mm. long, 1.5-2.3 mm. wide, acutish, barely mucronate (mucro 0.1 mm. long) at the slightly inflexed apex, rounded at the oblique sessile base, glabrous, 7-nerved; keel 2.5-3 mm. long, the crest on each side of a deltoid lamella and 2-3 entire or bifid lobes; capsule suborbicular, plump, the short oblique stipe-like base broadly winged on the lower side, 2-2. 1 mm. long, 1.8-2 mm. wide ; seed obovoidellipsoid, plump, shining, short-pubescent, 1.4 mm. long; aril 1.1-1.2 mm. long, the 2 linear lobes appressed.
Type locality: Sandy swamps of New Jersey.
Distribution: Rhode Island and New Jersey to Florida, and westward to Mississippi.