Description: Annual herbs, simple or branched at base.
Leaves linear, acute, sheathing at base; margins finely toothed; stipules absent.
Flowers solitary or in terminal heads, loosely enclosed by broad-elliptic and scarious involucral bracts. Calyx tubular, 5-toothed, 5–15-veined, with 5 scarious strips marking the fusion lines of the sepals. Petals 5, clawed, with 2-lobed obcordate limb, pink. Stamens 10. Styles 2.
Capsule ovoid; 1-locular above, 4-locular below, shorter than the calyx, opening by 4 teeth; seeds hollowed out on one side, tubercled or papillate on the outer face.
Distribution and occurrence: World: c. 20 species, mainly Mediterranean region. Australia: 2 species (naturalized), all States except N.T.
Text by A. Doust
Taxon concept:
| | Key to the species | |
| 1 | Internodes usually deeply furrowed, the middle ones usually with glandular hairs; leaf sheaths at least twice as long as broad; flowers shortly pedicellate; involucral bracts keeled with mucronate apices; seeds usually less than 1.3 mm long, strongly glandular-papillate | Petrorhagia dubia |
| Internodes terete or somewhat furrowed, either covered in simple hairs or glabrous; leaf sheaths less than twice as long as broad; flowers subsessile; involucral bracts without keels, apices obtuse; seeds 1.3–1.6 mm long, with numerous small tubercles | Petrorhagia nanteuilii |
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