Petrorhagia saxifraga, known as tunic flower or coat flower, is a small, herbaceous flowering plant in the family Caryophyllaceae.[1][2] It is native to parts of Europe and introduced to the United States and Canada, Great Britain, and Sweden.[1][2]Petrorhagia saxifraga is also known as tunic saxifrage, pink saxifrage, or just pink.[3][4]
It is a wiry plant with numerous branching stems, narrow leaves, and flowers growing solitary at the ends of branches. The petals range from pink to white.[5] It is commonly cultivated in rock gardens and used along borders, escaping to grow in lawns, along roadsides, along shorelines, and in other sandy disturbed areas.[2][4][6]
Tunic flower was originally described as Dianthus saxifragus by Carl Linnaeus in 1753 and renamed Petrorhagia saxifraga in 1831.[7][8] The genus and species name refer to its natural habitat: rock crevices.[3] Two subspecies are accepted:
Petrorhagia saxifraga subsp. gasparrinii (Guss.) Pignatti ex Greuter & Burdet
^ abReznicek, A. A.; Voss, E. G.; Walters, B. S., eds. (February 2011). "Petrorhagia saxifraga". Michigan Flora Online. University of Michigan Herbarium. Retrieved 6 January 2019.
^Wilhelm, Gerould; Rericha, Laura (2017). Flora of the Chicago Region: A Floristic and Ecological Synthesis. Indiana Academy of Sciences.