Silene cognata

Description

Herbs perennial, 50--85 cm tall, pilose with sparse multicellular eglandular hairs. Roots caespitose, fusiform, slightly fleshy. Stems simple or branched above. Leaves ovate or ovate-lanceolate, 3.5--10 - 2--4 cm, both surfaces and margin pilose, base rounded, rarely broadly cuneate, slightly clasping, apex acute. Dichasium several flowered, dense, rarely corymblike. Pedicel 3--12 mm; bracts lanceolate, herbaceous, densely villous, ciliate at margin. Flowers 3.5--5 cm in diam. Calyx narrowly campanulate, 1.5--2.8 cm - 4--8 mm, villous, densely so at veins, slightly inflated in fruit; teeth triangular. Petal limb crimson-red, 2-lobed to 1/2; lobes linear, apex obtuse, sometimes obscurely denticulate, each lobe with a subulate, lateral tooth; claw narrowly lanceolate, not exceeding calyx; coronal scales dark red, narrowly elliptic. Stamens and styles slightly exserted. Androgynophore ca. 5 mm. Capsule narrowly ellipsoid-ovoid, 1.2--1.4 cm. Fl. Jun--Jul, fr. Aug--Sep. 2n = 24.