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