Plants of South Eastern New South Wales

Print Fact Sheet

Sagina procumbens

Common name

Procumbent Pearlwort, Spreading Pearlwort

Family

Caryophyllaceae

Where found

Pastures, lawns, disturbed sites, gardens, paths, and moist areas. Often forming dense mats in gardens and on lawns. Coast and ranges, mainly Sydney area and Blue Mountains. Occasionally elsewhere.

Notes

Introduced perennial herb, to about 0.05 m high, mat-forming, with fibrous roots, often rooting from the nodes. Stems to 20 cm long, hairless or rarely hairy with minute hairs. Leaves opposite each other, usually 0.5–1.5 cm long, 0.3–0.8 mm wide, hairless or the margins fringed, with long drawn out pointed tips with a short awn. Flowers with 4-5 sepals each 2–2.5 mm long, with narrow membranous margins. Petals minute, white, often absent. Flowers single, on stalks 5–13 mm long. Flowers Sep.–Feb. Seed cases oval, longer than the sepals, 2–4 mm long. Sepals spreading when the seed cases are ripe.

PlantNET description:  http://plantnet.rbgsyd.nsw.gov.au/cgi-bin/NSWfl.pl?page=nswfl&lvl=sp&name=Sagina~procumbens (accessed 5 February, 2021)