Hi, Can anyone narrow down the possibilities for me? Found in northern VA on dry sandy soil….these are the most likely suspects according to VA plant atlas. It is a spindly thing with very narrow leaves and this flower…sorry for blurriness. Most of the species appeared to have short rotund “bladders” but this one had a longish narrow one. Not all of the species in the list are known from northern VA but they are all found in the state. Silene antirrhina Sleepy Catchfly N Silene armeria L. Sweet William Catchfly I Silene caroliniana Walt. var. pensylvanica (Michx.) Fernald Wild Pink, Northern Wild Pink N Silene coronaria (L.) Clairville Rose Campion, Crown Pink I Silene dichotoma Ehrh. ssp. dichotoma Forked Catchfly I Silene gallica L. Small-flowered Catchfly I Silene latifolia Poir. White Campion, Evening Lychnis I Silene nivea (Nutt.) Muhl. ex Otth Snowy Campion N Silene noctiflora L. Night-flowering Catchfly, Sticky Campion I Silene ovata Pursh Mountain Catchfly N Silene rotundifolia Nutt. Round-leaf Catchfly, Sandstone Fire Pink N Silene stellata (L.) Ait. f. Starry Campion N Silene virginica L. Fire Pink N Silene vulgaris (Moench) Garcke Thanks for any input!
After posting a list of over a dozen Silene possibilities, you now agree that it looks like a Dianthus armeria!? I'm interested in how you came to that conclusion.
Margot, I am not a botanist but I am trying to improve my skills. I have a friend who is much more knowledgeable but neither of us are terribly familiar with flora in this plant community. She suggested that it looked like Silene so I searched under that assuming wrongly that she was correct. The reason I concurred so quickly with Michael was that I have seen Dianthus on this trail but it is not ingrained in my memory bank so I didn’t recognise it when I should have….feeling a bit stupid! Do you think I’m incorrect?
Not at all. I'm just interested in what botanical features you looked at that made you think this was a Dianthus rather than a Silene.
For me, it was the long slender calyx (usually shorter and broader in Silene) and the long slender leaves too.
Interesting…the calyx is what made it hard for me to believe that it was any of the species I listed and again, I am a novice, so a good indication for even someone unfamiliar with the genera, Silene vs Dianthus and an additional clue to me was that it seems that most Silene species have a well defined clump of basal leaves. Dianthus did not have this. Where I saw it on trail there were always singular stems, no basal leaves. One other thing, was the flower. Silene sp seemed to have flowers very specific to each species, i.e. a certain number of petals, petals of a certain shape, colour, (but that could be either white or pink in some species). None of the flower descriptions in the list of Silene matched the flower of the unknown. Sometimes, for me flowers are hard to id if species are very close but this was fairly apparent in this case.
Yeh, I remember realizing one year that if nothing I could find was matching what I was looking at, maybe I was barking up the wrong tree and I should try a different genus (or even family).
