Rose campion, dusty-miller, mullein pink, lychnide coronaire

Agrostemma coronaria Linnaeus, Sp. Pl. 1: 436. 1753; Lychnis coronaria (Linnaeus) Murray

Plants perennial, grayish white-tomentose, eglandular; taproot slender to stout; caudex branched, slightly woody. Stems several, erect, branched distally, stout, 40-100 cm. Leaves: basal blade oblanceolate, spatulate, 5-10 cm × 10-25(-30) mm, margins entire, apex acute, apiculate, with tuft of white hairs; cauline in 5-10 pairs, sessile, reduced distally, blade with both surfaces obscured by dense, silky, grayish-white tomentum. Inflorescences with 1-several dichotomies, several-flowered, open, bracteate; branches ascending, elongate; bracts leaflike, 10-20 mm. Pedicels straight, stout, to 10 cm. Flowers ca. 35 mm; calyx thickly 10-veined, obovate, ca. 15 × 10 mm in fruit, margins dentate with 5 narrowly lanceolate lobes ca. 1/ 4 length of tube, tomentose; corolla rich magenta-pink, sometimes white, clawed, claw equaling calyx, limb spreading horizontally, broadly obovate, shallowly 2-lobed, appendages 2, narrow, 2-4 mm; stamens equaling claw; stigmas 5, equaling claw. Capsules equaling to tightly enclosed within calyx, obovate-elliptic, ca. 14 mm, opening by 5 spreading, lanceolate teeth; carpophore ca. 2 mm. Seeds grayish brown, reniform-rotund, plump, 1-1.5 mm, coarsely verrucate. 2n = 24.

Flowering summer. Roadsides, fields, waste or rocky places; 0-300 m; introduced; B.C., N.B., N.S., Ont., Que.; Ala., Ark., Calif., Conn., Idaho, Ill., Ind., La., Md., Mass., Mich., Mo., N.H., N.J., N.Y., N.C., Ohio, Oreg., Pa., S.C., Utah, Vt., Va., Wash., W.Va., Wis.; Europe.

Silene coronaria is commonly cultivated and occasionally escapes.