BLADDER CAMPION 



Silene cucubalus Wibel 



June - August It came over from Europe — the bladder campion — and 

 Roadsides seeded itself abundantly along the roadsides. There, in 



Illinois as in England, the campion late in the after- 

 noon opens its five, deeply cleft petals above the inflated calyx, and blooms 

 in the twilight. Around them hum pale night moths which, in their noc- 

 turnal flittings, very likely transfer pollen from flower to flower. 



By morning the shining white flowers have turned pale pink and are 

 drooped. The inflated bladder calyx becomes an even more inflated 

 bladder seed-pod and distinguishes this campion from others in the 

 family. 



It is a plant which hastily appears in newly opened land. When a 

 lane is put through a woodland, one of the first plants to spring up is the 

 bladder campion. Perhaps it comes as seeds in hay, or they were stuck 

 in mud on wheels — somehow the campion gets there. While it stays along 

 the roads it is not an objectionable weed, but it may cause some difficul- 

 ties in crop fields, especially the grains, where its seeds need to be sifted 

 from the edible grains before they can be milled. 



The bladder campion blooms all summer long. The stems are thin 

 and pale, the leaves ojjposite and tapered, dark green and finely downy 

 or fine-hairy. The five-parted flowers with ])r()tru(ling stamens and pistil 

 grow in loose clusters at the tips of the stems and new buds often con- 

 tinue to appear from the axils of the leaves. 



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