Caryophyllaceae

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Pink family

White campion (Silene latifolia)

Scientific classification

Kingdom:	Plantae
Division:	Magnoliophyta
Class:	Magnoliopsida
Order:	Caryophyllales
Family:	Caryophyllaceae Juss.

Genera

See text.

The Caryophyllaceae, commonly called 'The Pink' or 'The Carnation' family, is a family of flowering plants. The species are dicotyledons included in the order Caryophyllales. This is a large family with 88 genera and some 2,000 species.

This cosmopolitan family of herbaceous plants is best represented in temperate climates, with a few species growing on tropical mountains. Some of the most commonly known members include: Carnations, Firepink, and Campion. Many species are grown as ornamental plants, but some are widespread weeds. Most species grow in the Mediterranean and bordering regions of Europe and Asia. The number of genera and species in the southern hemisphere is rather small, although the family does contain Colobanthus quitensis, the world's southernmost dicot, and one of only two flowering plants of Antarctica.

Despite its size and the somewhat doubtful mutual relationships, this family is rather uniform and easily recognizable. Most are herbacaceous annuals or perennials, dying off above ground each year. A few species are bushy with a woody rhizome, or even small trees. Most plants are non-succulent, i.e. having no fleshy stems or leaves. The nodes on the stem are swollen.

The leaves are almost always opposite, rarely whorled. The blades are entire, petiolate and often stipulate. These stipules are not sheathforming.

The hermaphroditic flowers are terminal, blooming singly or in branched or forked in cymes. The inflorescence can be dichasial. This means that in the axil of each peduncle ( = primary flower stalk) of the terminal flower in the cyme, two new single-flower branches sprout up on each side of and below the first flower. If the terminal flowers are absent, then this can lead to monochasia, i.e. a monoparous cyme with a single flower on each axis of the inflorescence. In the extreme, this leads to a single flower, such as in Dianthus.

The flowers are regular and mostly 5-merous, i.e. with 5 petals and 5 sepals, but sometimes with 4 petals. The sepals are free from one another or united. The petals are fringed or deeply cleft at the end. The calyx may be cylindrically inflated, as in Silene. The stamens number 5, 8 or 10. They are mostly isomerous with the perianth. The superior gynoecium has 2 to 5 carpels (members of a compound pistil) and is syncarpous, i.e. with these carpels united in a compound ovary. This ovary is 1-locular, i.e. having one chamber inside the ovary.

The fruit is non-fleshy. It is usually a capsule, less frequently a small nut.

This family is usually divided in three subfamilies :