Authors:
ex Hook. (Dianthoideae). Bushy decumbent habit with slender stems to 12cm long and horizontal rhizomes which produce many adventitious shoots, giving the appearance of a colony. Leaves narrowly spathulate to oblanceolatespathulate, glaucous, l-2cm by l-2mm, attenuated into a long pseudopetiole, tending to cluster around the bases of the stems. Wiry peduncles clear the foliage and bear two to three alternate small leaves. Flowers either solitary or in pairs on rather nodding pedicels, about 2.5cm in diameter with usually more than five and up to ten deep rosy-pink to violet-magenta rounded, overlapping petals. Sepals suborbicular and broad with a blunt but shortly cuspidate tip. Chile and Argentina, in the central and southern cordilleras on hot, sunny, rocky slopes, often disturbed by melt conditions in stony barrens or among high alpine steppe communities at 2500-4000m. Flowering January-March in the wild. [Pl.69]
