Blooming in March to May, its fragrant flowers are pink and occur in a cluster at the end a vertical spike which may reach up to 3' in height.

[1] Swamp pink is a federally threatened species that was historically distributed from Staten Island, New York to the southern Appalachians.

[5] United States Fish and Wildlife Service has instituted a volunteer monitoring project, "Adopt-a-Swamp-Pink Population".

Ideally the plant prefers an environment where the water table sits at about the level of the top of its root system, but not covering the basal rosette.

[8] This could be explained as a result of high self-fertilization rate due to harsh environmental conditions that affect successful cross-fertilization, such as limited seed dispersal range and browsing from predators.

[9] This is a result of natural selection considering the 'watery' habitat (i.e. swamp and wetland) of Helonias, and it accounts for the long-distance seed dispersal.