SILENE GALLICA
Family:- CARYOPHYLLACEAE/Sect. SILENE
Common Names:- Small-flowered catchfly
Synonyms:- Corone gallica, Oncerum gallicum, Silene arvensis.
Meaning:- Silene (Gr) A name used by the Greek philosopher Theophrastus for
catchfly.
Gallica (L) From France, French.
General description:- Very variable short to medium sticky-hairy annual.
Stems:-
Leaves:-
hairy.
Flowers:-
1) White or pink, often with red marks at the base of the petals, from 6-10mm,
erect, joined together in unilateral racemes.
2) Corolla, with 5 free petals, indented or not.
protruding vein masking the base of the petals.
4) Stamens,10 including 5 a little shorter.
5) Styles, 3
Fruit:-
2) Seeds, dark brown; faces deeply concave, covered in numerous small striated
Key features:-
1) Calyx 7-10 mm.
2) Carpophore less than 1 mm.
3) Seeds with excavate face and wide, flat or concave back.
Habitat:- Generally as a weed of fallow fields, olive groves, vineyards and
roadsides,
sometimes in coastal habitats or on rocky slopes with dry open shrubby vegetation.
0-600(-1100) m.
Distribution:- Widespread and common throughout the Mediterranean. Fairly
widespread on Crete, more common in the west.
Flowering time:- Mar-June.
Photos by:- Steve Lenton
SPECIES DESCRIPTION
GLOSSARY OF TERMS USED
Calyx:- A collective name for the sepals - the outer whorl of organs in most flowers.
Capsule:- Dry fruit that opens when ripe. splitting from the apex to the base into
separate segments known as valves.
Carpophore:- The fruit bearing stalk A prolongation of the receptacle or floral axis
bearing the carpels or ovary.
Corolla:- Collective name for the petals.
Glabrous:- Without hairs, hairless.
Lanceolate:- Lance-shaped: more or less elliptical but broadest below the middle.
Linear:- Narrow and parallel-sided. Narrow, much longer than wide.
Petal:- The inner perianth segments when they clearly differ from the outer.
Petiolate:- Having a leaf stalk.
Pubescent:- Covered with fine short soft hairs, downy.
Raceme:- A spike-like inflorescence in which the individual flowers are stalked.
Sepal:- A member of the outer perianth whorl in most flowers. collectively making
up the calyx.
Stamen:- Pollen-producing reproductive organ, typically consisting of a stalk called
the filament and an anther.
Striate:- With parallel longitudinal grooves.
Style:- The stalk that connects the stigma to the ovary.
Tubercle:- A small rounded projection or protuberance, wart-like projections.
Viscid:- Sticky.
