Description: Erect, spreading or prostrate annuals.
Leaves alternate, entire to pinnately or palmately toothed, lobed or dissected, becoming bracteate up stem, apex spinose.
Flowers sessile or ± sessile in heads surrounded by spiny bracts. Calyx cleft to base into unequal, entire or toothed, usually acerose lobes which are sometimes reduced to a single vein. Corolla ± funnel-shaped with spreading lobes, white, yellow, blue, violet or pink; lobes 5 or rarely 4. Stamens equally to unequally inserted in throat or in sinuses of corolla lobes, included or exserted; filaments glabrous at base. Ovary 3-locular; stigma entire or 2-lobed.
Capsule ovoid to obovoid, 1–3-locular.
Distribution and occurrence: World: 30 species, chiefly North America with 1 species South America. Australia: 1 species (naturalized).
Text by S. M. Hastings
Taxon concept:
| One species in NSW: Navarretia squarrosa |
|
