Description :

• Annual, biennial or perennial herbs, sometimes woody at base, diffuse, often glandular-viscid; stems often decumbent or ascending, swollen at nodes, with forked or fascicled branches
• Leaves opposite, sometimes ± fleshy, linear to filiform, with abbreviated leaf buds in their axils and appearing whorled; stipules scarious, connate in pairs and sheathing the node
• Inflorescences cymose or pseudo-racemose
• Flowers bisexual, rarely unisexual, subperigynous
• Sepals 5, free, divided almost to base, obscurely nerved, with scarious margins
• Petals 5, entire, rarely 0, white, pink or red
• Stamens (2)5-10, unequal, arising on a perigynous ring; anthers medifixed, introrse
• Ovary 1-locular; ovules many on free-central placenta; styles 3(-5), free or ± connate
• Fruit a capsule, subglobose or ovoid-trigonous, dehiscent almost to base into 3(-5) valves or teeth
• Seeds many, ovoid, pyriform or subtrigonous, often winged; testa smooth, rugose or variously tuberculate; embryo annular or hooked
• x = 9 (aneuploids, high polyploidy)

Nomenclature:

• Spergularia (Pers.) J.Presl & C.Presl
  • Presl & Presl: 94 (1819)
  • Pax & Hoffmann: 312 (1934)
  • Monnier & Ratter: 154 (1964)
  • Adamson: 394 (1950)
  • Meikle: 274 (1977)
  • Friedrich: 782 (1979)
  • Bittrich: 220 (1993)
• Arenaria section Spergularia Pers.
  • Persoon: 504 (1805).
• Lepigonum Sond.
  • Sonder: 134 (1860)

Distribution & Notes:

• Global : Species ± 25, cosmopolitan, especially some halophytes with nearly worldwide distribution
• Southern Africa : Species 4, mainly in Cape region, but also scattered in Namibia, North-West, Free State and KwaZulu-Natal