Dianthus
noun
Herbs, perennial (D. armeria annual or biennial), sometimes mat-forming. Taproots stout, rhizomes (when present) slender or stout. Stems erect or ascending, simple or branched, terete or angled. Leaves connate proximally into sheath, petiolate (basal leaves) or sessile; blade 1-veined, linear or oblong to ovate, apex acute. Inflorescences terminal, open cymes, dense bracteate clusters or heads, or flowers solitary; bracts paired, herbaceous to scarious, or absent; involucel bracteoles 1-3 pairs, herbaceous or scarious. Pedicels erect in fruit. Flowers: sepals connate proximally into tube, 10-22 mm, tube green or reddish, 20-60-veined, ± cylindric, terete, commissures between sepals absent, lobes green or reddish, 3-8-veined, triangular to lanceolate, shorter than tube, margins white or reddish, mostly scarious, apex acute or obtuse; petals often pink or red, sometimes white
or purple, sometimes spotted or with darker center, clawed, auricles absent, coronal appendages absent, blade apex dentate or fimbriate to 1/ 2 of length; nectaries at filament bases; stamens 10, adnate with petals to carpophore; filaments distinct; staminodes absent; ovary 1-locular; styles 2, filiform, 0.7-6 mm, glabrous proximally; stigmas 2, linear along adaxial surface of styles, papillate (30×) . Capsules ovoid to cylindric, opening by 4 teeth; carpophore present. Seeds 40-100+, blackish brown, shield-shaped, dorsiventrally compressed, papillose-striate to papillate, marginal wing absent, appendage absent; embryo central, straight. x = 15. Species ca. 320: n North America, Eurasia (Balkans to c Asia), Africa; introduced in North America (except D. repens), South America, Pacific Islands (Hawaii), possibly Australia. Dianthus species have been popular garden subjects for years; there are now over 27,000 registered cultivar names (A. C. Leslie 1983 and 19 subsequent supplements) . Although they are most popular in Great Britain, many species and cultivars are grown in North America. While some popular taxa (e.g., D. caryophyllus Linnaeus, clove pink, and the hybrids called D. €˜allwoodii', Allwood's pink) do not appear to escape and/or persist after cultivation, others do so readily. Five of the six species treated here are introduced and readily persist; D. repens is our only native species. In spite of the popularity of Dianthus in horticulture, the genus requires a thorough study using modern methods. It is the second largest genus in the family (surpassed only by Silene) but there is no recent monograph or comprehensive infrageneric classification. The genus is sometimes divided into two subgenera [Dianthus and Carthusianastrum F. Williams; e.g., F. A. Pax and K. Hoffmann (1934c) and T. G. Tutin and S. M. Walters (1993) ], corresponding to the division indicated in couplet one of the key below. Others, including M. Kuzmina (2002, 2003), have considered this an artificial separation.