Silene alba and S. dioica in North America and the generic delimitation of Lychnis, Melandrium, and Silene (Caryophyllaceae)

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Abstract
Evidence is presented from numerical studies of herbarium and cultivated specimens and from observations on time of flowering that North American weed populations of white cockle are referable to the European S. alba (.ident. L. alba .ident. M. album) and are not, as was suggested, the products of hybridization between that species and S. dioica. The present status and distribution in North America of S. alba, S. dioica and the hybrids between them are described. Evidence for different generic circumscriptions of Silene, Lychnis and Melandrium is analyzed and the limited applicability of the capsule dehiscence character is demonstrated. Recent treatments that accept Lychnis in a narrow sense and assign most of the North American species of the group to a large genus Silene are accepted pending further study. Two new subspecific combinations (S. uralensis ssp. attenuata comb. nov. (L. attenuata Farr) and S. uralensis ssp. montana comb. nov. (L. montana S. Watson) are proposed.