The alpine Dianthus are amongst the staples of the rock garden, providing lots of reliable colour after the first flush of spring flowers has passed. They form neat cushions of thin, pointed leaves, blue-grey in the majority of species, and have short stems, each with a few, wide-open, five-petalled flowers, mostly in the white-pink-red colour range. With over 100 European species, identification is often tricky.

Dianthus carthusianorum is a tall pink with single, scented, pink to magenta flowers with sharply spiky petals, above narrow, grassy green foliage. Its dark seed head is striking in winter. This Carthusian pink comes from the alpine meadows of central and southeast Europe.