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

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