Silene dichotoma subsp. dichotoma

Forked catchfly, Forked Catchfly

Family: Caryophyllaceae · Type: annual · Not Native

Forked catchfly is a naturalized annual found in California regions including the northern California Region, San Francisco Bay Area, and southern California coastal areas in fields and roadsides at elevations below 1,000 meters. Flowering during summer, this plant produces white to red flowers with delicate two-lobed petals 5 to 9 millimeters long. Growing 20 to 80 centimeters tall with erect stems that are generally short and rough-hairy, it has distinctively structured foliage with lower leaves 6 to 8 centimeters long and 15 to 30 millimeters wide, becoming progressively smaller and narrower toward the stem's top. Its leaves are lanceolate to oblanceolate, gradually reduced upward, with upper leaves 2 to 5 centimeters long and 3 to 20 millimeters wide. The fruit is an ovoid seed capsule containing dark brown to black seeds 1 to 1.5 millimeters in size.

Habitat: Fields, roadsides

Bloom period: Summer

Elevation: < 1000 m

Bioregions: CaR, SnFrB, SCo

Data from The California Species Project — 14,000+ California species with verified data from CNPS, CDFW, USFWS, Jepson eFlora, Cal-IPC, and more.