Silene mazuda

Appearance

The calyx is crossed from top to bottom by very evident dark lines, and the petals are bilobed and bright pink. After flowering, the calyx swells, but only the top, the base remains narrow. The leaves are opposite and finely pubescent.
Annual plant, 25-40 cm, puberulent. Stems ascending, retrorso-puberulous, hairy above the nodes.

Leaves mucronate, ciliate at the base, puberulous elsewhere; the lower ones, long petiolate, spatulate to oblanceolate, rarely linear; the upper ones, from spatulate to linear.

Monocasial inflorescence, up to 10 flowers. Bracts linear, ciliate; the lower ones, generally longer than the pedicels. Pedicels of lower flowers 3-14 mm at anthesis and up to 45 mm at fruiting, puberulous.
Calyx (12.5)14-17 mm, puberulous mainly on veins; these, markedly anastomosed, sometimes reddish; triangular, acute, ciliate teeth.
Petal blade 7-8 mm, bifid, pinkish, rarely whitish; bipartite corolla ligule. Carpophore 4.5-7 mm, puberulous.

Capsule 8-13 mm, globose. Seeds 1.5-2 x 1.8-3 mm, flat, reticulate.

Naming

Synonyms: Silene ambigua Cambess. Silene colorata subsp. secundiflora (Otth) Sagredo & Malag. Silene glauca Lag. Elench. Pl. [15] (1816), nom. illeg., non Salisb.

Distribution

Iberian Peninsula, Balearic Islands and NW Africa (Tunisia, Algeria and Morocco). S and E of the Peninsula and the Balearic Islands

Behavior

Flowers from March to July.

Habitat

Rocks and pastures, in limestone; 0-1400m