White campion
Silene latifolia
Family · Caryophyllaceae · Harmless
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The campion with large white flowers that open at dusk and scent the verge all night, because night moths pollinate them. By day it is barely noticed.
Roadsides and waste ground · Fields and pasture · Town and roadside · Uplands
Also known asbladder campion of the night, white cockle
How to tell it
The whole plant is hairy and sticky, unlike bladder campion, which is smooth and bluish. White flowers with five petals deeply split in two. An inflated but hairy calyx, with ten or twenty veins. Male and female plants are separate.
What it is confused with
Bladder campion
Silene vulgaris
This is the confusion that matters, because one is a prized wild vegetable and the other is not. Run a finger over it: bladder campion is smooth and bluish, this is hairy and sticky. And this one opens at night.
What it is for
No relevant food use, unlike bladder campion. It counts as an observation: it is one of the few plants in our fields that does all its business at night.
Where it occurs
Each square is an area with recorded observations of this plant. The lighter background is the set of areas where any of the entries has been observed, and serves as a reference. Note what this is not: it is not where the plant lives, it is where people record it, so trails and towns always look fuller than the mountains. Data from GBIF.
Sources
Community
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