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White Campion

Silene latifolia

Summary 5

Silene latifolia (formerly Melandrium album), the white campion is a dioecious flowering plant in the family Caryophyllaceae, native to most of Europe, Western Asia and Northern Africa. It is a herbaceous annual, occasionally biennial or a short-lived perennial plant, growing to between 40-80 centimetres tall. It is also known in the USA as bladder campion but should not be confused with Silene vulgaris, which is more generally called Bladder Campion.

At the Garden 6

This weedy campion has been seen in the Thain Family Forest and other areas in the Garden.

Description 7

Plants annual or short-lived perennial; taproot woody. Stems erect or decumbent at base, branched, to 100 cm, finely hirsute, glandular-puberulent distally. Leaves: blade hirsute on both surfaces; basal usually withering by flowering time, petiolate, blade oblong-lanceolate to elliptic; cauline sessile, reduced into inflorescence, blade lanceolate to elliptic, 3-12 cm × 6-30 mm, apex acute. Inflorescences several-many-flowered (fewer in pistillate plants), open, dichasial cymes, bracteate; bracts much reduced, lanceolate, herbaceous. Pedicels 1-5 cm. Flowers unisexual, some plants having only staminate flowers, others having only pistillate flowers, fragrant, 25-35 mm diam.; in veined staminate plants subsessile to short-pedicellate, in pistillate plants pedicellate; calyx prominently 10-veined in staminate flowers, 20-veined in pistillate, tubular, becoming ovate in pistillate flowers, 10-20(-24) × 8-15 mm in fruit, margins dentate, hirsute and shortly glandular-pubescent, lobes to 6 mm, broadly ovate with apex obtuse, to lanceolate with apex acuminate; petals white, broadly obovate, ca. 2 times calyx, limb spreading, unlobed to 2-lobed; stamens equaling to slightly longer than calyx; stigmas (4-)5, slightly longer than calyx. Capsules ovate, ca. equaling calyx, opening by (4-)5, spreading to slightly reflexed, 2-fid teeth; carpophore 1-2 mm. Seeds dark gray-brown, reniform-rotund, plump, ca. 1.5 mm, coarsely tuberculate. 2n = 24.

Sources and Credits

  1. (c) Andreas Rockstein, some rights reserved (CC BY-SA), https://www.flickr.com/photos/74738817@N07/28760927502/
  2. Carl Axel Magnus Lindman, no known copyright restrictions (public domain), http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:340_Silene_latifolia,_Silene_nutans.jpg
  3. (c) Algirdas, some rights reserved (CC BY-SA), http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Baltaziedis_sakinys_resize.JPG
  4. Grezty~commonswiki, no known copyright restrictions (public domain), http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Silene_latifolia-feuille.jpg
  5. (c) Wikipedia, some rights reserved (CC BY-SA), http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Silene_latifolia
  6. (c) bkmertz, some rights reserved (CC BY-SA)
  7. Adapted by bkmertz from a work by (c) Missouri Botanical Garden, 4344 Shaw Boulevard, St. Louis, MO, 63110 USA, some rights reserved (CC BY-NC-SA), http://eol.org/data_objects/5014832

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