Silene fruticosa L., it is a perennial, up to 60 cm tall shrublet with older paris almost glabrous and ± viscid younger shoots, branched from the base. Leaves obovate to narrowly spathulate-oblanceolate below, lanceolate above, all glabrous with tough shining papillae, ± connate-vaginate at the base, ciliate on margins, acute. Flowers large, pink or red, 2-2.5 cm across, in a dense, usually unbranched raceme; pedicels upright, much shorter than the calyx and bracts; bracts green, lanceolate, glabrous, scarious and ciliate on margins. Calyx tube subcylindrical at anthesis, (18-) 20-24 (-25) mm long, clavate and not contrasted at the apex in fruit, ± umbilicate, 10-nerved, patently glandular hairy; teeth ovate-lanceolate, 4-4.5 mm long, unequal, acute, densely ciliate on scarious margins. Petal limb obovate-cuneate, 9-12 mm long, shallowly bifid with obovate, obtuse lobes; claws white, shortly exserted, glabrous; coronal scales ovate-oblong, c. 1 mm long, entire or sometimes laciniate, acute, pink. Stamens 10, filaments filiform, glabrous; anthers oblong, c. 2 mm long, yellowish-white, exserted. Ovary oblong-cylindrical, as long as the stipe; styles filiform, exserted, violaceous. Capsule ovoid, 13-17 mm long, beaked, included in the calyx; carpophore 7-10 mm long, sometimes equalling the fruit, glabrous. Seeds rounded-reniform, c. 1.5 mm long, faces plane or slightly concave, striate, obtusely grooved on the back.
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