Fringed campion is a perennial herb that spreads vegetatively by long, slender, stolon-like rhizomes and leafy offshoots, both terminating in overwintering rosettes. The flowers are arranged in groups of three to five in a terminal cyme with leafy bracts. The five separate petals are each divided into a lower part about as long as the calyx and a triangular upper part that extends 3 to 4 centimeters from the calyx. The wide apex of each petal is divided into slender segments, giving the flower a fringed appearance. The petals are pink or white.
Fringed campion occurs in two distinct geographic areas.
The northern portion of its range is in central Georgia in the Piedmont very near the Coastal Plain sandhills, from Macon in Bibb County west through Crawford, Taylor, and Talbot Counties. Because the plant spreads vegetatively, the number of rosette clusters probably far exceeds the number of genotypes in any population. Often on fairly steep slopes of deep ravines or north-facing hillsides. Piedmont flatwoods are bottomland hardwood forests on level sites, with basic or circumneutral soils on mafic or ultramafic volcanic rock. All of the sites with fringed campion appear to be consistently moist, either from downslope seepage or from location in a bottomland.