Common Name

Lesser Sand-spurrey, Salt Sand-spurrey

Family

Caryophyllaceae

Notes

Annual, biennial, or perennial forb, prostrate to sprawling or to 35cm tall.  Leaves fleshy, opposite each other, sometimes clustered, 0.5-5cm long, 0.6-1.5mm wide, linear, hairless to sticky-hairy, with rounded tips, sometimes with a point. Flowers with 5 petals which are rose-purple or pink with white at the base, or whitish. Petals sometimes reduced or absent. Flowers single or in dense to open groups, often raceme like, at the tops of the stems.

Differs from Spergularia bocconei, Spergularia brevifolia, Spergularia diandra, Spergularia diandroides, and Spergularia rubra in that the petals are 3-4mm long and rose-purple or pink with white at the base, and the flowers usually have 2-5 stamens.

Definite differentiation between the species of Spergularia depends on microscopic examination of the seeds.

Descriptions of all species of Spergularia in the key are mostly taken from:  Adams, L.G. West, J.G. & Cowley, K.J., (2008) Revision of Spergularia (Caryophyllaceae) in Australia. Australian Systematic Botany 21:251-270

eFloraSA fact sheet:   http://www.flora.sa.gov.au/cgi-bin/speciesfacts_display.cgi?form=speciesfacts&name=Spergularia_marina

Photo of flowers and leaves. Photographer Don Wood, south coast, NSW