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Support the Flora of the Southeastern US

2024 has been a banner year for making the best flora we can imagine. We've created:
With financial support from people like you, we are aiming even higher in 2025. Together we can accomplish all this: Vote on our 2025 priorities
  • Add Global Conservation Ranks (GRanks) vote
  • Professional graphic keys (polyclaves) to individual families/genera vote
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We've set a goal of recruiting 200 ongoing supporters to donate $15 or more each month in 2025. Please help us reach this goal and make next year's flora even better:

Click the number at the start of a key lead to highlight both that lead and its corresponding lead. Click again to show only the two highlighted leads. Click a third time to return to the full key with the selected leads still highlighted.

Key to Caryophyllaceae, Key A: Subkey in Caryophyllaceae

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1 Calyx immediately subtended by 1-3 pairs of bracts; [tribe Caryophylleae].
  2 Calyx 20-40-nerved
  2 Calyx 15-nerved
1 Calyx lacking subtending bracts.
    3 Sepals 25-62 mm long; calyx lobes longer than the calyx tube, the lobes as long as or longer than the corolla lobes; [tribe Sileneae]
    3 Sepals (1-) 10-28 (-40) mm long; calyx lobes shorter than the calyx tube, the lobes much shorter than the corolla lobes (except Gypsophila).
      4 Styles 2; fruit valves 4; petals appendaged or not; [tribe Caryophylleae].
        5 Sepals 1-5 mm long, the commissures between the sepals scarious.
          6 Leaves lanceolate to ovate, (1-) 2-20 (-35) mm wide; plants few-branched, or if diffusely-branched, only in the upper half of the plant's length
          6 Leaves linear, 0.2-2 (-3) mm wide; plants diffusely branched from near the base upwards
        5 Sepals 7-25 mm long, lacking commissures.
             7 Calyx tubular, 20-nerved; petals appendaged; perennial
             7 Calyx ovoid, 5-nerved; petals not appendaged; annual
      4 Styles 3-5 (or 0 in staminate plants); fruit valves 3, 4, 5, 6, 8, or 10; petals generally appendaged; [tribe Sileneae]
               8 Plant glabrous; calyx glabrous, narrowly funnelform, dilated above the midpoint; petals pink; stem with glutinous zones on upper internodes
               8 Plant glabrous or pubescent; calyx glabrous or pubescent, either tubular (nearly the same diameter through its length) or broadened below the middle (flask-shaped); petals white or pink (rarely absent); stem lacking glutinous zones (except S. antirrhina).
                 9 Styles mostly 3; capsule with 3 or 6 teeth; calyx tubular or campanulate at anthesis, not greatly inflated (except in S. vulgaris)
                 9 Styles mostly 5; capsule with 5 or 10 teeth; calyx tubular at anthesis, becoming strongly inflated later in S. dioica and S. latifolia.
                   10 Petal limbs deeply divided into 4 linear segments; [or, former Lychnis section Uebelinia]
                     11 Leaf blades with dense silky white hairiness; flowers bisexual; [or former Lychnis section Agrostemma]
                     11 Leaf blades variously pubescent, but not with silky-appressed pubescence; [Silene section Melandrium]