Annual with slender taproot; hairs dense, glandular and few eglandular. Stems decumbent, diffusely-branched, 7–30 cm long. Leaves sessile, oblanceolate to ovate, 5–20 mm long, 2–7(–10) mm wide, acute. Inflorescence lax, few-flowered; bracts entirely herbaceous. Flowers usually 4-merous; pedicels longer than sepals, much longer than capsule; calyx glandular-pilose, sepals ovate to lanceolate, 4–9 mm long, acute to acuminate, herbaceous or margins narrowly scarious; petals three-quarters the length of sepals, c. one-fifth bifid; styles 4(–5). Capsule usually straight, 5–10 mm long; seeds chestnut-brown, colliculate to bluntly tuberculate, 0.4–0.7 mm diam. Flowers Sep.–Nov.
LoM, MuM, Wim, GleP, MuF, GipP, OtP, Gold, CVU, GGr, NIS, EGL, EGU, WPro, HSF, HNF. Also naturalised SA, ACT. Native to western Europe, from Scandinavia to the Mediterranean. A rather sparsely-occurring weed of disturbed places.
Source:
Adams, L.G. (1996). Caryophyllaceae. In: Walsh, N.G.; Entwisle, T.J., Flora of Victoria Vol. 3, Dicotyledons Winteraceae to Myrtaceae, pp. 228–271. Inkata Press, Melbourne.
