Caryophyllaceae | fire pink
Bright red, long-stalked flowers in loose clusters atop slender, weak, or reclining stems.
Habitat: open woods, thickets, and rocky and sandy slopes
Flowers: 1 1/2" wide; sepals united into a long sticky tube; petals 5, narrow, often deeply cleft.
Leaves: basal leaves 1 1/2 - 4" long, lanceolate to spatulate; those on stem to 6" long opposite, unstalked.
Fruit: many-seeded capsule.
Occasional in Floracliff Nature Sanctuary.
Thieret, J. W., Niering, W. A., & Olmstead, N. C. (2001). National Audubon Society field guide to North American wildflowers: eastern region (Chanticleer Press ed.). New York: Alfred A. Knopf.