Night-flowering Catchfly
Night-Flowering Catchfly
Silene noctiflora L.
Caryophyllaceae (Pink Family)
▲ plant bases
▲ ▼ flowering plants
▲ stem base
▲ ▼ sticky, glandular hairs on leaves, stems and flowers
▲ ▼ flower calyxes
▲ ▼ flowers
Night-Flowering Catchfly:
- Eurasian native, short-lived perennial weed that grows 8-24 inches tall, with mostly unbranched stems (until flowering starts)
- Often produces a semi-rosette of opposite, lanceolate to pointed-oval, dark green softly-hairy leaves covered with sticky, glandular hairs
- At flowering, stem elongates, with longer internodes and slightly smaller leaves
- Flowers are at the ends of branched stem tips, and are white, five-petalled, with notched petals and below the petals is an inflated, football-shaped calyx that has 10 visible veins; male and female flowers are on separate plants; male flowers are smaller than female flowers
- Is becoming more common in reduced-tillage crops in northern Midwest
- Similar species White Campion (also native to Europe) has larger flowers, with 20 veins per flower and lacks the sticky hairs on leaves, stems and flowers; it is more common as a row-crop weed throughout