diff --git a/var/spack/repos/builtin/packages/silo/package.py b/var/spack/repos/builtin/packages/silo/package.py
index 763fc66383..96b2f60b4b 100644
--- a/var/spack/repos/builtin/packages/silo/package.py
+++ b/var/spack/repos/builtin/packages/silo/package.py
@@ -43,7 +43,7 @@ class Silo(Package):
     variant('pic', default=True,
             description='Produce position-independent code (for shared libs)')
 
-    depends_on('hdf5')
+    depends_on('hdf5~mpi')
     depends_on('qt', when='+silex')
 
     patch('remove-mpiposix.patch', when='@4.8:4.10.2')