Diodella teres

May be distinguished from D. virginica by its lavender-pink flowers, narrow leaves and numerous threadlike stipular bristles. D. virginica has white flowers and with wider leaves and fewer and flattened stipular bristles. Hairy stem. 1 pink-lavender flower in each leaf axil. Several threat like bristles in leaf axils. 4 calyx segments. Look alike: Spermacoce glabra- no hairs on stem, cluster of white flowers in leaf axils.

Seeds are produced from August to frost. The grayish-brown seeds are 1/8" long and retain 3-4 short calyx teeth.

Acceptable forage for cattle. Animals that eat its seeds: Attwater's prairie chicken, Wild turkey. Animals that eat the plant: White-tailed deer (Martin et al. 1951).

A warm-season, shallow rooted forb with a slender taproot that reproduces by seed. Poorjoe is weedy and grows on sandy, usually dry soils through the eastern United States. It is most common in the southern states along the gulf coast where it is usually found in old fields, infertile pastures and disturbed prairie. Management for vigorous perennial species will control this species. Its scientific name "Diodia" comes from the Greek Diodas meaning "thoroughfare." Its common name "poorjoe" is thought to come from its tendency to grow on poor soils. Poorjoe is found from New England south to Florida and west to Texas.

Dry sandy fields, woodlands, roadsides, and waste places.