The range of Silene hookeri Nutt. (Caryophyllaceae) spans the Cascades of Oregon to the Coast Ranges of Northern California. This beautiful catchfly is also the namesake of a small complex of species that has included the narrowly distributed S. bolanderi, S. salmonacea, S. serpentinicola, as well as S. nelsonii, which has only recently been described. A combination of morphological and molecular evidence revealed that S. nelsonii was not derived from within the complex, and suggested that S. hookeri served as a progenitor of the remaining members of the complex. Further analyses of non-coding chloroplast sequences have supported this hypothesis, showing separate clades for each of the species (S. bolanderi, S. salmonacea, and S. serpentinicola) that also include representatives of S. hookeri from the same region.