Red sandspurry is a small, low-growing annual or short-lived perennial herb in the pink family, grown mostly as a wild weed rather than a garden plant. It thrives in poor, sandy or disturbed ground that drains freely.
Family
Caryophyllaceae (Pink & carnation family)
Grows as
Annual, Perennial
Light
Full sun
Water
Water sparingly; let the soil dry out between waterings.
Soil
Poor, sandy or gritty soil with good drainage.
Temperature
Tolerant of a wide range; hardy in temperate climates and frost-tolerant.
How easy
Easy
Native range
Europe to Russian Far East, Macaronesia to N. & NE. Trop. Africa, Arabian Pen.
Climate
temperate
About
Spergularia rubra, the red sandspurry or red sand-spurrey, is a plant species in the family Caryophyllaceae. It is native to Europe, Asia and North Africa, and it is present on other continents, including North and South America and Australia, as an introduced species and in many areas a common weed. It grows in a wide variety of habitat types.
It is an annual or perennial herb producing a slender, glandular stem up to about 25 centimeters (9.8 in) long. It is lined with slightly fleshy linear or threadlike leaves each under 2 centimeters long. The leaves may be tipped with hard points or spines, and they are accompanied by shiny white lance-shaped stipules. Flowers occur in the leaf axils and at the tips of the stems. They have hairy, glandular sepals and five round-oval pink petals.
Text excerpted from the Wikipedia article Spergularia rubra by its contributors, under CC BY-SA 4.0; the excerpts and the care summary drawn from them are shared under the same licence.
The care summary was written by AI (Claude, Anthropic) from the sources on this page, with general growing knowledge where they are silent. Check before relying on it.
Life form, climate and native range: World Checklist of Vascular Plants, Royal Botanic Gardens, Kew (CC BY 3.0), reformatted; see Plants of the World Online.