SILENE STELLATA. 



STARRY CAMPION, OR CATCH FLY. 



NATURAL ORDKR, CARVOniYLLACE^. 



SiLENE si'ELLATA, Aitoii. — Leaves verticillate in fours, oval-lanceolate, acuminate, sessile, 

 one to three inches long; calyx loose and bladder-like; petals white, cut into a fringe, not 

 crowned; flowers in an open terminal panicle. (Darlington's Flora Cestrica. See also 

 Gray's Afaiiiuil of the Botany of the Northern United States, Chapman's Flora of the 

 Southern United States, and Wood's Class-Book of Botany.) 



HE plant now called Silaic s fella fa was formerly known 

 as Cucubabis sfcllatus ; but Thomas Nuttall made Cucti- 

 balus a section of Silaic. Writing of our plant in 1827, the 

 author named, after describing several other species of the same 

 genus, says : " The most remarkable species of the genus is 

 C. sfcllatus, deriving its name from the peculiar character of its 

 leaves, being verticillatcd or stellated, and growing in fours; 

 they are also minutely but closely pubescent, and of an oval- 

 lanceolate form, with a long acumination. The petals are 

 white, divided almost like fringe, and, like Cucuhalus Bchcn, or 

 Campion (now Silcuc iujlafa), the flowers arc chiefly o})cn in the 

 evening." 



It will be noted that Nuttall, as well as Darlington, whose 

 description we have quoted at the head of this article, and 

 indeed all other botanical authors, dwell with particular empha- 

 sis on the verticillate or peculiarly stellate character of the 

 leaves, none of them, as far as we are aware, mentioning the fact 

 that other arrani^ements of the leaves sometimes occur. The 

 lower leaves, however, are generally in opposite pairs, as cor- 

 rectly shown on the plate by our artist; and, in Pennsylvania 

 at least, which supplied the specimen from which our illustra- 



