The aims of this study were to examine the chemical composition of the essential oil isolated from the floral parts of Silene armeria L. by hydrodistillation, and to test the efficacy of essential oil and various leaf extracts (n-hexane, chloroform, ethyl acetate and methanol) as an antifungal potential. The GC-MS analysis determined that 28 compounds, which represented 89.03% of total oil, were present in the oil containing mainly 1-butene, methylcyclopropane, 2-butene and caryophyllene oxide. The oil (1000 ppm/disc) and the leaf extracts (1500 ppm/disc) revealed remarkable antifungal effect against Fusarium oxysporum, Fusarium solani, Phytophthora capsid, Colletotrichum capsici, Sclerotinia sclerotiorum, Botrytis cinerea and Rhizoctonia solani, in the growth inhibition range of 39.6-67.6% and 9.3-61.3%, respectively, along with their respective MIC values ranging from 62.5 to 1000 mu g/ml and 125 to 2000 mu g/ml. The essential oil had also a strong detrimental effect on spore germination of all the tested plant pathogens along with concentration as well as time-dependent kinetic inhibition of B. cinerea. Thus, the results obtained in this study demonstrate that S. armeria essential oil and various organic extracts possess a wide range spectrum of fungicidal activity and could become an alternative to synthetic fungicides for controlling certain important plant fungal diseases. (C) 2008 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.