Cerastium L.

Herbs, annual or perennial. Leaves sessile or subsessile, entire, small. Flowers usually in terminal, dichotomous cymes, 5-merous, rarely 4-merous. Sepals 5, free, scarious, membranous-margined. Petals as many as sepals, 2-fid or emarginate at apex, white, rarely absent. Stamens usually 10, rarely less, hypogynous; nectaries present. Ovary 1-locular; styles 3 - 5, filiform. Capsules cylindrical, exceeding sepals, opening by twice as many short teeth as styles; seeds many, spherical or reniform, rough, compressed, often tuberculate.

Almost cosmopolitan; ca 60 species, 7 species in India.

KEY TO THE SPECIES

1a. Styles usually 3

2. Cerastium cerastoides

b. Styles usually 5

2

2a. capsule teeth curved or recurved, plain along margins

3

b. capsule teeth straight, recurved along margins

4

3a. Plants glabrous; capsules much longer than calyx

3. Cerastium dahuricum

b. Plants glandular-pubescent; capsules slightly longer than calyx

6. Cerastium indicum

4a. Leaves linear-oblong; cymes in umbel-like clusters

7. Cerastium thomsonii

b. Leaves not linear-oblong; cymes lax or compact

5

5a. Flowers 1 - 5; sepals 7 - 10 mm long

1. Cerastium alpinum

b. Flowers many; sepals less than 5 mm long

6

6a. Flowers in compact clusters; fruiting pedicels not exceeding sepals; sepals with long white hairs projecting beyond apex

5. Cerastium glomeratum

b. Flowers in dichasia, lax in fruit; fruiting pedicels exceeding sepals; sepals without such long hairs

4. Cerastium fontanum

List of Lower Taxa