Citation: L., Mant. Alt. 152 (1771).

Derivation: After Dr Petter Jonas Bergius, 1730-90, Swedish physician and botanist.

Synonymy: Not Applicable

Common name: None

Description:
Erect to prostrate annual or perennial herbs, sometimes slightly woody, with hairs on the younger parts of the stems; leaves opposite, usually serrulate, with often glandular or sometimes hair-like teeth, mostly attenuate to a short petiole; stipules herbaceous with membranous margins or more or less membranous throughout, usually with a midrib, fimbriate, often connate and/or adnate to the petioles at the base, persistent.

Flowers solitary, paired or in dense fascicles, usually with fimbriate bracts or bracteoles; sepals 3-5, acute to attenuate, more or less free, conspicuous, usually herbaceous with membranous margins, sometimes ciliate or more or less fimbriate, concave, more or less keeled, sometimes winged dorsally; petals as many as the sepals, white to pink, persistent; stamens 3-10; ovary cells as many as or fewer than the petals, gradually narrowing into the styles; capsules subglobose, the walls subcrustaceous, dehiscing opposite the petals when equal to them in number.

Seeds cylindrical, more or less sausage-shaped, smooth to conspicuously pitted.

Distribution:  About 25 species mainly in warmer parts of the world; 5 species in Australia.

Biology: No text

Key to Species:

1. Stamens 3-5; flowers in dense fascicles
2. Flowers usually 5-merous; petals acute; seeds faintly marked or smooth, c. 0.3 mm long	B. ammannioides 1.
2. Flowers 3- or 4-merous; petals obtuse; seeds distinctly pitted, c. 0.4 mm long	B. trimera 4.
1. Stamens 10; flowers solitary
3. Annuals; sepals c. 1.5 mm long	B. aff.pedicellaris 2.
3. Perennials: sepals 3.5-4 mm long	B. perennis 3.

Author: Not yet available