Swamp Pink (Helonias bullata)

This tuberous/rhizome Swamp Pink is native to swamps and bogs from southern New York south to North Carolina. Hardy to 5°.
Grown for erect flowering stems of 25 to 30 fragrant pink flowers that present as dense cylindrical heads in the spring. Excellent for bog garden and waterside placement, or to force.
To force, pot up after flowering, plunge into cold frame and bring under glass in late winter to temp. of 50°, keeping moist always.
Apply liquid fertilizer in summer.

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Swamp Pink is a member of the Lily Family. It is an evergreen rosette of oblong dark leaves from which a flowering scape develops that can get to 3 feet high. The terminal clusters of fragrant, tiny pink flowers with pale blue anthers are 1 to 3 inches long that blooms March to May. It grows in swamps, bogs, seepage areas, along meandering streams, and in hummocks formed by trees, shrubs, and sphagnum moss. its native range is from northern New Jersey, Delaware, 3 areas of Maryland, 4 areas of Virginia, 2 areas of North Carolina, the very west tip of South Carolina, and northeast Georgia. It needs acid, wet soil that is saturated by not flooded. It is threatened by nearby humans activities of development that causes changes in water levels, sedimentation, increased runoff, and habitat destruction. I did not know of this spectacular forb until I saw some placed in a display of a native plant landscape of the Mid-Atlantic where the soil is wet and acid. They must have been raised in pots in a regional nursery. This species is most common in New Jersey.

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