﻿Locai.ities.— In corn-fields, on banks, or on old walls. Very rare. A doubt- 

 ful native. — Cheshire; On the banks of the liver, half a mile below Chester : 

 Dr. Richardson, in Ray’s Syn. — Surrey ; In a corn-field at Weybridge, with 

 Silene anglica : W. Borrer, Esq. 



Annual — Flowers from June to September. 



Root small, and tapering. Whole plant of a glaucous green 

 colour. Stem from a foot to 18 inches high, upright, round, leafy, 

 smooth, alternately branched ; under each of the 2 or 3 upper 

 joints is a broad, brownish coloured glutinous ring, which catches 

 and imprisons small insects that happen to alight upon it ; this 

 viscidity is more or less common to all the species, and hence the 

 genus has obtained the English name of Catchfly. Leaves sessile, 

 opposite, egg-oblong, of a light glaucous green, very smooth. 

 Flowers numerous, on very short stalks, produced at the end of 

 the stem and branches, in upright, close, repeatedly forked, level- 

 topped panicles ; each subdivision accompanied by a pair of small 

 pointed bracteas. Calyx (fig. 1.) tubular, swelling upwards, very 

 smooth, often reddish, with 10 ribs and 5 teeth. Corolla (fig. 2.) 

 rose-coloured, sometimes white. Petals (fig. 4.) inversely heart- 

 shaped, always spreading, each with a pair of upright, tapering, 

 pointed scales at the base of the limb (see fig. 4.) ; these scales 

 were considered by Linnceus as nectaries, they constitute a crown 

 at the mouth of the tube formed by the claws of the petals. Cap- 

 sule (fig. 6.) slender, oblong, within the calyx, and elevated on a 

 stalk (see fig. 5.), often more than its own length ; hence, as Dr. 

 Hooker observes, the lower part of the calyx is contracted, while 

 the upper part is swollen by the enlargement of the capsule. 

 Seeds very small, somewhat kidney-shaped, furrowed at the back, 

 rough with elevated lines, which, on the 2 flat sides, radiate from 

 the base or hilum. 



This is a pretty species, and is very common in gardens, where it has been cul- 

 tivated for a great length of time as a hardy annual, and is known to almost 

 everybody by the name of Lobtl’s Catchfly. It grows wild in France, Ger- 

 many, and Switzerland, but it can scarcely be considered a native of England ; 

 the circumstance, however, of its having been found naturalized in the places 

 above mentioned by Dr. Richardson and Mr. Borrer, has obtained it a place 

 in the British Floras. Silene is a very extensive genus ; Mr. Don, in his very 

 excellent work, “ A General System of Gardening and Botany,” describes 256 

 species, natives of different parts of the globe. 



One species, Silene inflate, which is not uncommon in cornfields, and on 

 banks, &c. by road-sides in many parts of England, has been recommended for 

 cultivation, as a substitute for Asparagus or Green Peas, the young shoots 

 having the flavour of both. They should be gathered when about 2 inches long, 

 and the more they are blanched the better. The leaves boiled have also some- 

 what the flavour of peas, and proved of great use to the inhabitants of Minorca 

 in 1685, when a swarm of locusts had destroyed the harvest. Bryant, in his 

 “ Flora Dietetica,” says, the cultivation of this species would well reward the 

 gardener’s trouble. See With. Arr. and Don’s Gen. Syst. of Gard. and Bot. 



Two minute fungi, jEciduim Behenis, Decand. FI. Fr. v. vi. p. 94. ; and Baxt. 

 Stirp, Crypt. Oxon. N u . 90. ; and Credo Behenis, Decand. FI. Fr. v. vi. p. 93. ; 

 are parasitical on the leaves and stems of Silene inflata. 1 found them both 

 on this species of Silene, near the road leading from Bullington Green to Chey- 

 ney Lane, near Oxford, in August, 1827. I do not know that either of them 

 had before been found in England. 



