Sand Spurrey.Buda rubra.
Found on sandy barrens in blossom during June.
This very modest little plant is seldom more than 2 or 3 inches high, with its single, round, slender, and smooth stalk of a light green color, with red rings at the leaf-joints.
The small narrow leaf is entire, flat, a trifle thick in texture, and dusty green in color. The leaves occur in pairs that box the compass around the stalk in little groups, and sit very close together; a dry sheath encircles the stalk at their junction.
The very small flower has 5 scoop-shaped petals, fine in quality, and pale lilac inclining to pink in color, and several pale yellow stamens; its 5 calyx-parts are sometimes longer than its petals and are hairy, and gray-green, with pinkish tips. Two or three flowers occur on the top of the stalk.
Only one flower opens at a time, but the calyx splits apart and shows the color of the petals a day before the bud opens. This smallest of the Pinks grows in such sociable crowds in sandy spots as to form a thick carpet, very pretty to discover when its close green is starred with its tiny flowers.