Sagina L.

Herbs, annual or perennial; flowering shoots slender, ascending or prostrate. Leaves opposite, exstipulate, linear, slightly connate at base. Flowers solitary or in few-flowered cymes, 4 - 5-merous. Sepals 4 - 5, free, scarious-margined. Petals, if present, entire, white. Stamens as many or twice as many as sepals. Ovary 1-locular, many-ovuled; styles 4 - 5, alternating with sepals. Fruit a capsule, splitting almost up to base into 4 - 5 valves; seeds many, minute.

Chiefly in the northern temperate zone in Asia, Europe, Africa and America; 20 - 30 species, 4 species in India.

KEY TO THE SPECIES

1a. Flowers 4-merous

2

b. Flowers 5-merous

3

2a. Pedicels hooked; seeds smooth to granulate

5. Sagina saginoides

b. Pedicels erect; seeds rough-papillose

2. Sagina japonica

3a. Petals conspicuous, longer and broader than sepals

4. Sagina purii

b. Petals minute or absent

4

4a. Upper leaves ciliate towards base; pedicels erect after anthesis

1. Sagina apetala

b. Upper leaves not ciliate towards base; pedicels curved downwards after anthesis

3. Sagina procumbens

List of Lower Taxa