This section is from the book "Wild Flowers Of New York", by Homer D. House. Also available from Amazon: Wild Flowers Of New York.
A small annual, 3 to 15 inches tall, with three or four alternate branches above, the stems angled or square. Leaves all on the stem and mostly verticillate in fours, oblanceolate or linear-lanceolate, one-half to 1 ½ inches long and about one-eighth of an inch wide, entire, blunt and mucronulate at the apex. Flowers in short-stalked, oval, blunt racemes, about one-third to one-half of an inch thick, purplish green or nearly white; wings triangular-ovate, sessile, somewhat heart-shaped, pointed or awned, one-fourth of an inch long or less, longer than the pods; crest of the corolla minute; seeds oblong and somewhat hairy.
Memoir 15 N. Y. State Museum
Plate 123
B. Cross-Leaved Or Marsh Milkwort - Polygala cruciata
In low grounds and marshes along the coast and sandy swamps inland, Maine to Florida west to Michigan, Minnesota, Nebraska and Louisiana. Flowering from July to September.
 
Continue to: