Description :

• Erect annual or perennial slender herbs
• Leaves narrow, grass-like, 1-5-nerved
• Inflorescences terminal heads
• Flowers bisexual, with large, membranous bracts, forming an epicalyx
• Calyx cylindrical to campanulate, 5-toothed, 5-15-nerved, with scarious commissures
• Petals 5, very shortly bifid, exceeding calyx, pink
• Stamens 10; anthophore present or almost wanting
• Ovary 4-locular at base, 1-celled above; styles 2, hairy
• Fruit a capsule, oblong or ovoid, dehiscent by 4 apical teeth
• Seeds many, compressed, peltate with a facial hilum; embryo straight
• x = 6, 13 (aneuploids, polyploidy)

Nomenclature:

• *Petrorhagia (Ser.) Link
  • Link: 235 (1831)
  • Ball & Heywood: 121 (1964)
  • Friedrich: 978 (1979)
  • Bittrich: 232 (1993)
• Gypsophila L. section Petrorhagia Ser.
  • Seringe: 354 (1824) in part.
• Kohlrauschia in sense of Levyns
  • Levyns: 132 (1966) in part.
• Tunica Mertens & Koch
  • Koch: 182 (1831)
  • Bentham: 145 (1862)
  • Pax & Hoffmann: 355 (1934)
  • Adamson: 400 (1950)

Distribution & Notes:

• Global : Species 28, Europe, from Mediterranean to Kashmir, and on Canary Islands
• Southern Africa : Species 1: * Petrorhagia prolifera (L.) Ball & Heywood, introduced, naturalised in parts of southern Cape region