Description: Annual to perennial herbs with glandular or non-glandular hairs.
Leaves usually sessile with apex obtuse, rounded to mucronate.
Flowers pedicellate, numerous, in cymes; bracts herbaceous, with or without scarious margins. Sepals 5, free, with scarious margins. Petals 5, bifid or emarginate. Stamens 5 or 10. Styles 5.
Capsule longer than the calyx, curved, opening by 10 short teeth; seeds numerous, brown, finely or bluntly tubercled.
Distribution and occurrence: World: c. 60 species, cosmopolitan. Australia: 6 species (naturalized), all States.
Text by A. Doust
Taxon concept:
| | Key to the species | |
| + | Also apparently naturalised in NSW | Cerastium pumilum |
| + | Also apparently naturalised in NSW | Cerastium fontanum |
| 1 | Sepals with hairs that continue to and project past the apex | Cerastium glomeratum |
| Sepals with hairs confined to the herbaceous parts, not continuing to and projecting past the apex | 2 |
| 2 | Capsule 3.5–6.5 mm long, usually slightly longer than the calyx; stamens 5 | Cerastium balearicum |
| Capsule 8–11 mm long, about twice as long as the calyx; stamens 10
Back to 1 | Cerastium vulgare |
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