''Silene'' is a

genus Genus ( plural genera ) is a taxonomic rank used in the biological classification of living and fossil organisms as well as viruses. In the hierarchy of biological classification, genus comes above species and below family. In binomial nom ...

flowering plant Flowering plants are plants that bear flowers and fruits, and form the clade Angiospermae (), commonly called angiosperms. The term "angiosperm" is derived from the Greek words ('container, vessel') and ('seed'), and refers to those plants t ...

s in the

family Family (from la, familia) is a group of people related either by consanguinity (by recognized birth) or affinity (by marriage or other relationship). The purpose of the family is to maintain the well-being of its members and of society. Idea ...

Caryophyllaceae Caryophyllaceae, commonly called the pink family or carnation family, is a family of flowering plants. It is included in the dicotyledon order Caryophyllales in the APG III system, alongside 33 other families, including Amaranthaceae, Cactacea ...

. Containing nearly 900 species, it is the largest genus in the family. Common names include campion and catchfly. Many ''Silene'' species are widely distributed, particularly in the northern hemisphere.

Scientific history

Members of this genus have been the subject of research by preeminent plant ecologists, evolutionary biologists, and geneticists, including

Charles Darwin Charles Robert Darwin ( ; 12 February 1809 – 19 April 1882) was an English naturalist, geologist, and biologist, widely known for his contributions to evolutionary biology. His proposition that all species of life have descended ...

Gregor Mendel Gregor Johann Mendel, OSA (; cs, Řehoř Jan Mendel; 20 July 1822 – 6 January 1884) was a biologist, meteorologist, mathematician, Augustinian friar and abbot of St. Thomas' Abbey in Brünn (''Brno''), Margraviate of Moravia. Mendel was ...

, Carl Correns,

Herbert G. Baker Herbert George Baker (February 23, 1920 – July 2, 2001) was a British-American botanist and evolutionary ecologist who was an authority on pollination biology and breeding systems of angiosperms. He described what became known as "Baker's rul ...

, and Janis Antonovics. Many ''Silene'' species continue to be widely used to study systems, particularly in the fields of ecology and evolutionary biology.Bernasconi et al. 2009. Silene as a model system in ecology and evolution. Heredity. 103:5-14. PMI
19367316
/ref> The genus has been used as a model for understanding the genetics of sex determination for over a century. ''Silene'' species commonly contain a mixture of hermaphroditic and female (or male-sterile) individuals (gynodioecy), and early studies by Correns showed that male sterility could be maternally inherited, an example of what is now known as

cytoplasmic male sterility Cytoplasmic male sterility is total or partial male sterility in plants as the result of specific nuclear and mitochondrial interactions. Male sterility is the failure of plants to produce functional anthers, pollen, or male gametes. Background ...

. Two independent groups of species in ''Silene'' have evolved separate male and female sexes (dioecy) with chromosomal sex determination that is analogous to the system found in humans and other mammals. ''Silene'' flowers are frequently visited by flies, such as '' Rhingia campestris''. ''Silene'' species have also been used to study speciation, host-pathogen interactions, biological species invasions, adaptation to heavy-metal-contaminated soils, metapopulation genetics, and organelle genome evolution. Notably, some members of the genus ''Silene'' hold the distinction of harboring the largest mitochondrial genomes ever identified.

Etymology

''Silene'' is the feminine form of Silenus, an Ancient Greek woodland deity who was a companion and tutor to the wine god

Dionysus In ancient Greek religion and Greek mythology, myth, Dionysus (; grc, wikt:Διόνυσος, Διόνυσος ) is the god of the grape-harvest, winemaking, orchards and fruit, vegetation, fertility, insanity, ritual madness, religious ecstas ...

Taxonomy

''Silene'' was originally described by

Linnaeus Carl Linnaeus (; 23 May 1707 – 10 January 1778), also known after his ennoblement in 1761 as Carl von Linné Blunt (2004), p. 171. (), was a Swedish botanist, zoologist, taxonomist, and physician who formalised binomial nomenclature, the ...

. ''Silene'' is the feminine form of Silenus, a Greek woodland deity. Divisions of the genus into subgenera or

sections Section, Sectioning or Sectioned may refer to: Arts, entertainment and media * Section (music), a complete, but not independent, musical idea * Section (typography), a subdivision, especially of a chapter, in books and documents ** Section sig ...

before 2003 do not seem to be well-supported by molecular evidence. The genus ''Lychnis'' is closely related to and considered separate from ''Silene'', differing in the flowers having five styles (three in ''Silene''), the seed capsule having five teeth (six in ''Silene''), and in the sticky stems of ''Lychnis''.

Sexual systems

Sexual system A sexual system is a pattern of sex allocation or a distribution of male and female function across organisms in a species. Terms like reproductive system and mating system have also been used as synonyms. The distinction between sexual systems ...

s vary across species. Most ''Silene'' species are

hermaphroditic In reproductive biology, a hermaphrodite () is an organism that has both kinds of reproductive organs and can produce both gametes associated with male and female sexes. Many taxonomic groups of animals (mostly invertebrates) do not have s ...

representing 58.2% of ''Silene'' species, 14.3% are

dioecious Dioecy (; ; adj. dioecious , ) is a characteristic of a species, meaning that it has distinct individual organisms (unisexual) that produce male or female gametes, either directly (in animals) or indirectly (in seed plants). Dioecious reproducti ...

, 13.3% gynodioecious, and 12.2% are both gynodioecious and

gynomonoecious Gynomonoecy is defined as the presence of both female and hermaphrodite flowers on the same individual of a plant species. It is prevalent in Asteraceae but is poorly understood. It is a monomorphic sexual system alongside monoecy, andromonoecy ...

. Trioecy, andromonoecy, and gynomonoecy have also been reported but are extremely rare.

Species

Ecology

The lychnis is also the common name of ''

Hadena bicruris The lychnis (''Hadena bicruris'') is a moth of the family Noctuidae. It is found in northern and western Europe and Turkey. It has an Atlantic-Mediterranean distribution. In the East Palearctic it is replaced by '' Hadena capsincola''. Descriptio ...

'', a species of noctuid

moth Moths are a paraphyletic group of insects that includes all members of the order Lepidoptera that are not butterflies, with moths making up the vast majority of the order. There are thought to be approximately 160,000 species of moth, many of w ...

. The

larva A larva (; plural larvae ) is a distinct juvenile form many animals undergo before metamorphosis into adults. Animals with indirect development such as insects, amphibians, or cnidarians typically have a larval phase of their life cycle. ...

of this moth feeds on ''Silene'' (formerly ''Lychnis'') species, as do some other

Lepidoptera Lepidoptera ( ) is an order of insects that includes butterflies and moths (both are called lepidopterans). About 180,000 species of the Lepidoptera are described, in 126 families and 46 superfamilies, 10 percent of the total described speci ...

including

cabbage moth The cabbage moth (''Mamestra brassicae'') is primarily known as a pest that is responsible for severe crop damage of a wide variety of plant species. The common name, cabbage moth, is a misnomer as the species feeds on many fruits, vegetables, ...

(recorded on ''Silene chalcedonica''), grey chi and case-bearers of the genus ''

Coleophora ''Coleophora'' is a very large genus of moths of the family Coleophoridae. It contains some 1,350 described species. The genus is represented on all continents, but the majority are found in the Nearctic and Palaearctic regions. Many authors ...

'' including ''C. albella'' (feeds exclusively on ''Silene flos-cuculi'') and ''C. leucapennella''.

Uses

Many species of ''Silene'' are in cultivation for perennial gardens. Some have gained the

Royal Horticultural Society The Royal Horticultural Society (RHS), founded in 1804 as the Horticultural Society of London, is the UK's leading gardening charity. The RHS promotes horticulture through its five gardens at Wisley (Surrey), Hyde Hall (Essex), Harlow Carr (Nor ...

Award of Garden Merit The Award of Garden Merit (AGM) is a long-established annual award for plants by the British Royal Horticultural Society (RHS). It is based on assessment of the plants' performance under UK growing conditions. History The Award of Garden Merit ...

, including ''

Silene flos-jovis ''Silene flos-jovis'', the flower-of-Jove, is a species of flowering plant in the family Caryophyllaceae, native to the central Alps and found at elevations of . It is a mat-forming perennial growing to tall and wide, with hairy grey-green leav ...

'' and '' Silene schafta''. ''

Silene undulata ''Silene undulata'' ( xh, iindlela zimhlophe—"white ways/paths", also known as ''Silene capensis'', and African dream root) is a plant native to the Eastern Cape of South Africa. Cultivation In cultivation, ''S. undulata'' is an easily grown, ...

'' (syn. ''S. capensis'') is known as ''iindlela zimhlophe'' ("white paths") by the Xhosa of

South Africa South Africa, officially the Republic of South Africa (RSA), is the southernmost country in Africa. It is bounded to the south by of coastline that stretch along the South Atlantic and Indian Oceans; to the north by the neighbouring coun ...

. A Xhosa

diviner Diviner, also referred to as the Diviner Lunar Radiometer Experiment (DLRE), is an infrared radiometer aboard NASA's Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter, part of the Lunar Precursor Robotic Program which is studying the Moon. It has been used to create ...

identifies and collects the plant from the wild. The roots are ground, mixed with water, and beaten to a froth, which is consumed by novice diviners during the

full moon The full moon is the lunar phase when the Moon appears fully illuminated from Earth's perspective. This occurs when Earth is located between the Sun and the Moon (when the ecliptic longitudes of the Sun and Moon differ by 180°). This mea ...

to influence their

dream A dream is a succession of images, ideas, emotions, and sensations that usually occur involuntarily in the mind during certain stages of sleep. Humans spend about two hours dreaming per night, and each dream lasts around 5 to 20 minutes, althou ...

s. They also take it to prepare for various rituals. The root has such a strong, musky essence that the diviners who consume it exude the scent in their sweat.Hirst, M. (2005)
Dreams and medicines: The perspective of Xhosa diviners and novices in the Eastern Cape, South Africa.
''Indo-Pacific Journal of Phenomenology'' 5(2) 1-22. ''

Silene vulgaris ''Silene vulgaris'', the bladder campion or maidenstears, is a plant species of the genus ''Silene'' of the family ''Caryophyllaceae''. It is native to Europe, where in some parts it is eaten, but is also widespread in North America, where it ...

'', or Bladder Campion, is eaten in some

Mediterranean The Mediterranean Sea is a sea connected to the Atlantic Ocean, surrounded by the Mediterranean Basin and almost completely enclosed by land: on the north by Western and Southern Europe and Anatolia, on the south by North Africa, and on ...

countries. Young leaves may be eaten raw, and mature leaves are boiled, fried, stewed or mixed into dishes such as risotto.

Fossil record

†''Silene microsperma'' fossil seeds of the

Chattian The Chattian is, in the geologic timescale, the younger of two ages or upper of two stages of the Oligocene Epoch/Series. It spans the time between . The Chattian is preceded by the Rupelian and is followed by the Aquitanian (the lowest stage ...

stage,

Oligocene The Oligocene ( ) is a geologic epoch of the Paleogene Period and extends from about 33.9 million to 23 million years before the present ( to ). As with other older geologic periods, the rock beds that define the epoch are well identified but t ...

, are known from the Oberleichtersbach Formation in the

Rhön Mountains The Rhön Mountains () are a group of low mountains (or '' Mittelgebirge'') in central Germany, located around the border area where the states of Hesse, Bavaria and Thuringia come together. These mountains, which are at the extreme southeast end ...

, central

Germany Germany,, officially the Federal Republic of Germany, is a country in Central Europe. It is the second most populous country in Europe after Russia, and the most populous member state of the European Union. Germany is situated betwee ...

.The floral change in the tertiary of the Rhön mountains (Germany) by Dieter Hans Mai - Acta Paleobotanica 47(1): 135-143, 2007.

References

{{Taxonbar, from1=Q116209, from2=Q158863 Caryophyllaceae genera Taxa named by Carl Linnaeus