Milkwort
Milkwort, a genus of hardy annual or perennial herbs, shrubs, and trees. There are about 550 species, most of them from temperate or subtropical regions.
The fringed polygala, also called flowering wintergreen and bird-on-the-wing, is a species of milkwort found along the coast of New England. It has rose-purple flowers. (For picture, The Seneca snakeroot, a milkwort also found in New England, has small, whitish flowers. Its root, when dried, yields a substance used medicinally to treat snakebites. The common milkwort, native to the British Isles, is a trailing plant with white, pink, blue, or purple flowers. It was once believed that a nursing mother could increase her production of milk by eating this plant.
Milkworts belong to the family Polygalaceae. The fringed polygala is Polygala paucifolia; Seneca snakeroot, P. senega; common milkwort, P. vulgaris.