Silene conoidea

Plants annual; taproot slender. Stems erect, simple or with ascending branches, (20-)40-100 cm, coarsely puberulent, stipitate-glandular, viscid distally. Leaves: mid and proximal stem pairs connate, blade 1-several-veined, oblanceolate to narrowly lance-olate, (3-)5-12 cm × (3-)8-15 mm, apex acute, veins parallel; basal leaf blades oblanceolate and ± obtuse, sparsely to moderately puberulent on both surfaces, rarely subglabrous. Inflorescences several-many-flowered, open, bracteate; bracts resembling leaves but smaller. Pedicels ascending, straight, equaling or longer than calyx, densely stipitate-glandular, viscid. Flowers: calyx prominently 25-30-veined, lobed to 1/ 3 its length but splitting further in fruit, umbilicate, narrowly conic in flower, conic-ovoid and inflated in fruit, 20-30 × to 15 mm, margins dentate, puberulent and stipitate-glandular, lobes 5, lanceolate, narrow, acuminate, veins parallel; corolla deep pink, clawed, claw equaling or longer than calyx, limb slightly lobed or unlobed, broadly obovate, spatulate, 8-12 mm, appendages 2-4 mm, lobed or dentate; stamens equaling claw; stigmas 3, equaling claw. Capsules flask-shaped, 15-20 mm, opening by 6 recurved, lanceolate teeth; carpophore to 2 mm. Seeds brown, reniform, 1.2-1.8 mm broad, tuberculate. 2n = 20, 24 (Europe, Asia).

Flowering early summer. Dry waste places, roadsides, arable land; 0-1000 m; introduced; Alta., B.C., Sask.; Calif., Idaho, Mo., Mont., Oreg., Tex., Wash.; Eurasia.

Similar to Silene conica but larger in all its parts, S. conoidea is a rare adventive weed with showy flowers and inflated fruiting calyces.

A related Eurasian sp., with the cal becoming 2-3 cm and much inflated, the pet-blade 8-12 mm, and the seeds 1.2-1.5 mm wide, has been collected in Del.

Gleason, Henry A. & Cronquist, Arthur J. 1991. Manual of vascular plants of northeastern United States and adjacent Canada. lxxv + 910 pp.

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