Dianthus
Perennial (rarely annual) herbs or (not in Australia) small undershrubs, often glaucous. Leaves opposite, often more or less linear and parallel-veined; bracts herbaceous, leaf-like. Flowers solitary or in few-flowered dichasia, 5-merous, unisexual or bisexual; epicalyx present as 1–3 pairs of awned scales; calyx tubular, cylindric, not strongly veined with scarious seams, 5-lobed; petals long-clawed, exceeding calyx; coronal scales absent; stamens 10; ovary 1-celled, with several ovules, styles 2. Capsule cylindric to narrow-ovoid, opening by 4 short teeth; carpophore very short, sometimes absent; seeds several, ovate-scutate, dorsiventrally compressed, finely tuberculate or smooth.
Some 300 species, native to Europe (especially the Mediterranean area), Asia and South Africa; 1 species naturalised in Australia.
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.
Spinning
