White and Greenish 



faces of the three-cleft style are tightly pressed together that not 

 a grain may touch them. But when the anthers have shed their 

 pollen, and the filaments have spread outward and away from the 

 pistil, the three stigmatic arms branch out to receive the fertilizing 

 dust carried from younger flowers by their busy friends. 



Starry Campion 



(Silene stellata) Pink family 



Flowers — White, about Y? in. broad or over, loosely clustered in 

 a showy, pyramidal panicle. Calyx bell-shaped, swollen, 

 5-toothed, sticky ; 5 fringed and clawed petals ; 10 long, 

 exserted stamens ; 3 styles. Stem: Erect, leafy, 2 to } l 2 ft. 

 tall, rough-hairy. Leaves : Oval, tapering to a point, 2 to 4 in. 

 long, seated in whorls of 4 around stem, or loose ones opposite. 



Preferred Habitat— Woods, shady banks. 



Flowering Season — J une — August. 



Distribution — Rhode Island westward to Mississippi, south to the 

 Carolinas and Arkansas. 



Feathery white panicles of the starry campion, whose pro- 

 truding stamens and fringed petals give it a certain fleeciness, are 

 dainty enough for spring ; by midsummer we expect plants of 

 ranker growth and more gaudy flowers. To save the nectar in 

 each deep tube for the moths and butterflies which cross-fertilize 

 all this tribe of night and day blossoms, most of them— and the 

 campions are notorious examples — spread their calices, and some 

 their pedicels as well, with a sticky substance to entrap little 

 crawling pilferers. Although a popular name for the genus is 

 catchfly, it is usually the ant that is glued to the viscid parts, for 

 the fly that moves through the air alights directly on the flower 

 it is too short-lipped to suck. An ant catching its feet on the minia- 

 ture lime-twig, at first raises one foot after another and draws it 

 through its mouth, hoping to rid it of the sticky stuff, but only 

 with the result of gluing up its head and other parts of the body. In 

 ten minutes all the pathetic struggles are ended. Let no one guilty 

 of torturing flies to death on sticky paper condemn the Silenes ! 



The Bladder Campion (S. vulgaris)— S. inflata of Gray—to 

 be recognized by its much inflated calyx, especially round in fruit, 

 the two-cleft white petals, and its opposite leaves that are spatu- 

 late at the base of the plant, is a European immigrant now nat- 

 uralized and locally very common from Illinois eastward to New 

 Jersey and north to New Brunswick. Like the night-flowering 

 catchfly (p. 93) this blossom has adapted itself to the night-flying 

 moths ; but when either remains open in the morning, bumble- 

 bees gladly take the leavings in the deep cup. To insure cross- 



171 



