ISSN 2226-3063 e-ISSN 2227-9555 Modern Phytomorphology 11: 5–13, 2017 doi: 10.5281/zenodo.344558 © The Author(s) 2017. Published by Novikoff A.V., State Natural History Museum NAS of Ukraine on behalf of Modern Phytomorphology. This is an open access article under the Creative Commons BY-NC-ND license (http://creativecommons.org/ licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0/) freely available on https://phytomorphology.org/ . Introduction Silene L. (Caryophyllaceae Juss.) is a large genus with worldwide distribution, containing about 700 species. Tese species are mainly hermaphrodite, although a few species are dioecious or gynodioecious (Bari 1973; Greuter 1995). Tese are annual, biennial or perennial herbs. Te section Auriculatae (Boiss.) Schischkin is the largest within this RESEARCH ARTICLE Seed morphology of Silene commelinifolia Boiss. complex (Caryophyllaceae Juss.) Neda Atazadeh 1 , Maryam Keshavarzi 1 *, Masoud Sheidai 2 , Abbas Gholipour 3 1 Plant Sciences Department, Alzahra University, Vanak, 1993891176 Tehran, Iran; * m.keshavarzi@alzahra.ac.ir, neshat112000@yahoo.com 2 Faculty of Biological Sciences, Shahid Beheshti University, Evin, 198394716 Tehran, Iran 3 Biology Department, Payame Nour University, 193953697, Tehran Iran Received: 04.10.2016 | Accepted: 16.01.2017 | Published: 28.02.2017 Abstract Silene (Caryophyllaceae) is a large genus with about 700 species distributed worldwide. Auriculatae is the largest section of this genus with 21 endemic species represented in Iran. Seed micromorphology of S. commelinifolia, S. lucida, S. nurensis and S. eremicana from 18 populations was studied by the light microscopy. As a result, 6 populations were adopted for further SEM studies. A great variation was observed in seed shape and size, lateral and peripheral surfaces of seeds, and shape of testa cells edge. Totally, 16 quantitative and qualitative seed features were measured and evaluated. Seed size varied from 1.28 × 1.43 mm in Alvand population of S. eremicana, to 1.97 × 1.50 mm in Bozghosh population of S. lucida. PAST and SPSS software was applied to demonstrate the species relationships. S. eremicana and S. lucida were closely grouped, which is in accordance with their morphological similarities. Seed micromorphology revealed that the species, which are similar to S. commelinifolia are clearly separated from each other. Therefore seed morphology is of taxonomic importance in the studied group. Keywords: Silene, seed, micromorphology, SEM, Iran