Data provided by the participants of the Consortium of California Herbaria

View additional distribution information on the Jepson eflora

Silene occidentalis is a species of flowering plant in the pink family known by the common names western catchfly and western campion. It is endemic to northern California, where it is known from the southern Cascade Range and sections of the Modoc Plateau and Sierra Nevada. It grows in chaparral and mountain forest habitat. Silene occidentalis is a perennial herb growing from a woody, leafy caudex and taproot, sending up an erect, mostly unbranched stem which may be 60 centimeters tall. The lance-shaped leaves are up to 12 centimeters long around the caudex, and shorter farther up the stem. Flowers occur in a terminal cyme and sometimes in leaf axils. Each flower is encapsulated in a hairy, glandular calyx of fused sepals. The calyx in this species can be very long, nearly 4 centimeters in length in subspecies longistipata. At the end are five pink petals, each with usually four fringelike lobes at the tip.

Plant type

Annual herb, Perennial herb

Size

2 ft Tall

Calscape icon
Color

White, Pink

Water

Low, Moderate

Plant communities

Chaparral, Lodgepole Forest, Red Fir Forest, Yellow Pine Forest

Caterpillars
Butterflies

Butterflies and moths supported

0 confirmed and 1 likely

Confirmed Likely

Rufous Quaker Moth

Protorthodes rufula