CARYOPHYLLACE^. 3I 



SILENE. F.B.I. 18 VI. 



Campion Catch-fly, 



Calyx tubular (inflated or not), five-toothed, ten- 

 nerved. Petals five, with narrow lower part and spread- 

 ing upper, often with two swellings at the middle. 

 Ovary often slightly stalked : capsule of firm material, 

 three to five locular at the base, one-locular at the top, 

 opening in six teeth. Seeds kidney-shaped covered 

 with transverse rows of tubercles on the back and sides. 

 Annual or perennial herbs with solitary, cymose, or 

 variously panicled flowers. 



Species 300, chiefly round the Mediterranean region. Ger. 

 Pechnelke, Fr. Attrapemouche. 



Named after the drunken^ slobbering god, siLENE, because some of the 

 species are covered with sticky secretion. 



Silene gallica Linn. ; F.B.I. i 218, VI 3. A loose 

 straggling herb with opposite leaves, but the flowers 

 developed only along one side of the stems thus forming 

 unilateral racemes. Stem or branches erect or ascend- 

 ing, 4 to 18 inches. Leaves oblong or oblanceolate 

 about I by ^ inch, sometimes sticky. Flowers nearly 

 sessile in the axils of one of each pair of upper leaves. 

 Calyx tube /^ to J^ inch, hairy, ten-ribbed. Petals not 

 much exserted from the tube, pink, each with two scales 

 one-third from the top. Styles three. Capsule egg- 

 shaped. Seed with rows of tubercles, and an ear-shaped 

 depression on each side. t. 24. 



As a weed by road-sides, etc. 



Geti. Dist. A weed of cultivation in all parts of the world, native of 

 Europe. Fyson 3003. 



Silcne armeria Linn.; an annual herb with regularly 

 decussate ovate sessile leaves and terminal corymbs of 

 pink flowers, in regularly-forking cymes, is a common 



