Authors: L.  

Botanical Description

Stems more or less woody, four-angled, much branched, to 15cm or more in height, usually with a greater spread. Leaves awl-shaped, 8-12mm long, firm textured and spine-tipped. Flowers about 1.2cm across, with five, deeply lobed white or pale pink petals in dense clusters, surrounded by protruding, lanceolate, spiny bracts, summer. Italy to Greece in mountain screes at 800-3000m. D.s. subsp. jacquiniana has ovate floral bracts barely as long as the flowers and petals lobed to halfway (the petals of D. spinosa are cleft to the base). Italy and Yugoslavia on dunes and coastal rocks.