Description :

• Prostrate, mat-forming annual to perennial herbs, with a taproot
• Leaves opposite and members of pair often unequal, sessile or subsessile, plane and entire; stipules and bracts ovate-lanceolate, white, often conspicuously silvery and shiny
• Inflorescences axillary and terminal, ± head-like cymose clusters; flowers usually ± concealed by large, silvery-membranous bracts
• Flowers bisexual, slightly or distinctly perigynous, small
• Sepals 5, almost free, hooded and with a dorsal spreading awn near apex
• Petals 0
• Stamens 4 or 5; filaments filiform, inserted on perigynous ring; anthers dorsifixed, oblong
• Ovary ovoid; ovule solitary, basal; styles 2, free or connate below; stigmas 2, elongate or clavate
• Fruit a nutlet enclosed within persistent calyx, often irregularly rupturing at base; pericarp membranous
• Seeds many, lenticular to globular, smooth, dark brown; embryo curved
• x = 7, 9 (8) (high polyploidy)

Nomenclature:

• *Paronychia Mill.
  • Miller: [1019] (1754)
  • Adanson: 272 (1763)
  • Jussieu: 387 (1815)
  • Willdenow: 517 (1819)
  • Candolle: 370 (1828)
  • Hooker: 15 (1880)
  • Pax: 90 (1889)
  • Baker & Wright: 11 (1909)
  • Adamson: 397 (1950)
  • Chater: 149 (1964)
  • Henderson & Anderson: 130 (1966)
  • Chaudhri: 64 (1968)
  • Bittrich: 223 (1993)
  • Gilbert: 99 (1993)
• Gymnocarpos Forssk.
  • Forsskål: 65 (1775)

Distribution & Notes:

• Global : Species ± 110; nearly cosmopolitan (except southern Africa, SE Asia); with centres of distribution in the Mediterranean, in Turkey, in the SE United States and Peru/Bolivia; only 7 species penetrating into tropical Africa south to Chad, Ethiopia and Somalia
• Southern Africa : Species 1: * Paronychia brasiliana DC. var. pubescens Chaudhri, a South American species, introduced, widespread, a troublesome weed in lawns, especially on golf courses