Silene eretica, L.

Tutin, T. G., Heywood, V. H., Burges, N. A., Moore, D. M., Valentine, D. H., Walters, S. M. & Webb, D. A., 1964, Flora Europaea - Volume 1. Lycopodiaceae to Platanaceae, Cambridge University Press : 176

124. S. eretica L. , Sp. Pl. 420 (1753)

(5. clandestina Jacq.; inch S. annidata Thore and S. tenuiflora Guss. ).

Stems (15—)30— 60 cm, usually branched, erect, puberulent at base with deflexed hairs, glabrous above, rarely entirely glabrous. Flowers in lax, usually narrow dichasia; pedicels 2-5 times as long as calyx. Calyx 9-16 mm, ovoid in fruit; teeth triangular, acute or acumi­ nate. Petal-limb large, emarginate or bifid. Capsule 7-10 mm; carpophore 1 -5 mm, glabrous. Seeds 0- 75-2 mm, reniform; faces slightly concave, tuberculate-ridged; back wide, plane or slightly concave, with 3 or 4 rows of low, rounded tubercles. Native in E. Mediterranean region, S. Italy and Sicilia; perhaps native in the Iberian peninsula. Widely introduced elsewhere in S. & C. Europe as a weed offlax-fields and naturalized in much of the south; casual further north. *A1 Bu Cr Gr *Hs It * Lu Si Tu [Au Co Ga Ge He Ju Sa].

Plants from Greece and Italy with the calyx 14-16 mm, the carpophore 4-5 mm, the capsule c. 10 mm and the seeds c. 0- 75 mm have beenseparated as S. tenuiflora Guss. , Pl. Rar. YTl (1826). A predominantly western variant with the petals very deeply bifid, the carpophoreless than 2 mm, the capsule 7-8 mm, and the seeds c. 2 mm, has been separated as S. annulata Thore , Essai Chlor. Land. 173 (1803) (5. eretica subsp. annulata (Thore) Hayek). These variations are of a clinal nature, and the variants do not merit subspecific status.