Stems leafy, branched above, annual, smooth and somewhat angled, 5 to 15 inches high. Leaves all on the stem, oblong to linear-oblong in shape, three-fourths to 1½ inches long, one-eighth or one-sixteenth of an inch wide, pointed and mucronulate. Flowers purplish, greenish purple, whitish or greenish in terminal, globose, blunt heads about one-half of an inch thick, becoming oval; wings of the flowers sessile, ovate, often slightly cordate, longer than the pod, bracts usually persistent on the elongating axis as the lower flowers fall away.

In meadows, fields and sandy depressions, Nova Scotia to Ontario and Minnesota, south to North Carolina, Kansas and Arkansas. Flowering from June to September.

Memoir 15 N. Y. State Museum

Plate 124

A. Field Or Purple Milkwort

A. Field Or Purple Milkwort - Polygala viridescens