Silene burchelliiOtth ex DC.

gunpowder plant

WFO wfo-0000438640 Accepted WFO 2026-06 8 photographs CC0 / CC BY / CC BY-SA

Plate 1 figs. a–h · 8 separate observations

Silene burchellii, photographed by Suvarna Parbhoo Mohan
fig. a Suvarna Parbhoo Mohan, CC BY-SA 4.0 / 2022-02-11 / obs. 180109021
Silene burchellii, photographed by Matthew Fainman
fig. b Matthew Fainman, CC BY 4.0 / obs. 164016530
Silene burchellii, photographed by Peter Warren
fig. c Peter Warren, CC0 1.0 / obs. 169074890
Silene burchellii, photographed by Matthew Fainman
fig. d Matthew Fainman, CC BY 4.0 / obs. 102615513
Silene burchellii, photographed by Antoinette Eyssell Knox
fig. e Antoinette Eyssell Knox, CC BY-SA 4.0 / obs. 99075050
Silene burchellii, photographed by Tony Rebelo
fig. f Tony Rebelo, CC BY-SA 4.0 / obs. 64859746
Silene burchellii, photographed by Peter Warren
fig. g Peter Warren, CC0 1.0 / obs. 59563797
Silene burchellii, photographed by Peter Warren
fig. h Peter Warren, CC0 1.0 / obs. 75703118

Every figure is a research-grade observation under CC0, CC BY or CC BY-SA, rehosted with the photographer’s name, the licence and the observation it came from. Photographs under a NonCommercial licence are excluded from this site and are never stored, which costs us a great many pictures and is not negotiable.

Native range 24 botanical countries

Regions where Silene burchellii is native: Angola, Cape Provinces, Djibouti, DR Congo, Eritrea, Eswatini, Free State, Kenya, KwaZulu-Natal, Lesotho, Malawi, Mozambique, Namibia, Northern Provinces, Rwanda, Somalia, Sudan-South Sudan, Tanzania, Uganda, Zambia, Zimbabwe, Oman, Saudi Arabia, Yemen AngolaCape ProvincesDjiboutiDR CongoEritreaEswatiniFree StateKenyaKwaZulu-NatalLesothoMalawiMozambiqueNamibiaNorthern ProvincesRwandaSomaliaSudan-South SudanTanzaniaUgandaZambiaZimbabweOmanSaudi ArabiaYemen
Native distribution of Silene burchellii, after Kew’s World Checklist of Vascular Plants. Introduced, extinct and doubtful records are excluded, so this is where the plant is from, not everywhere it now grows.
RegionTDWG codeContinent
Angola ANG AFRICA
Cape Provinces CPP
Djibouti DJI
DR Congo ZAI
Eritrea ERI
Eswatini SWZ
Free State OFS
Kenya KEN
KwaZulu-Natal NAT
Lesotho LES
Malawi MLW
Mozambique MOZ
Namibia NAM
Northern Provinces TVL
Rwanda RWA
Somalia SOM
Sudan-South Sudan SUD
Tanzania TAN
Uganda UGA
Zambia ZAM
Zimbabwe ZIM
Oman OMA ASIA-TEMPERATE
Saudi Arabia SAU
Yemen YEM

Region boundaries approximated from Natural Earth (public domain) and mapped to TDWG World Geographical Scheme for Recording Plant Distributions (WGSRPD) level-3 botanical countries (Brummitt 2001). Indicative, not the official WGSRPD geometry.

Flowering 76 in flower of 77 examined

Peak flowering in Jan. Each bar is the share of Silene burchellii observations in which someone actually recorded the reproductive state and found the plant in flower, not the raw number of flowering records. That distinction matters: people observe plants far more in spring than in winter, so a bare count of flowering records partly measures when people go outside. Dividing by the number examined removes that. 76 of 77 examined observations were in flower, every one of them research grade. The whisker on each bar is a 95% Wilson interval. 3 months have fewer than 5 examined observations, so no proportion is drawn for them. This is still a global aggregate and not a forecast for your garden: the same species flowers on different dates in different hemispheres. Where a species has fewer than 30 flowering records we do not draw this chart at all. Computed from 10.15468/dl.cgje2x.

Also published as 3 synonyms

A synonym is not an error. It is a record of botanists disagreeing, in print, about where this plant belongs. Each of these was somebody’s considered answer.

  • Silene burchellii var. burchellii
  • Silene burchellii var. macrorrhiza R.E.Fr.
  • Silene dinteri Engl.

Sourcesevery claim on this page

  1. World Flora Online Plant List. accepted name, authority, classification. CC0. Retrieved 2026-07-12.
  2. iNaturalist. photographs and flowering annotations, CC0 / CC BY / CC BY-SA only. per photograph. Retrieved 2026-06-27.
  3. Wikidata. common name (P1843), joined on the World Flora Online identifier (P7715). CC0. Retrieved 2026-07-13.
  4. Kew, World Checklist of Vascular Plants (WCVP v16). native distribution by TDWG level-3 botanical country, and life form. CC BY 3.0. Retrieved 2026-06-04.

We publish what we can source and we say so when we cannot. This page has no care advice and no toxicity claim, because we do not yet have those from a source we can cite.