70 FARM WEEDS OP CANADA 



BLADDER CAMPION (Silene latifolia (Mill.) Britten & Rendle). 



Other English names: Cow-bell, White Bottle, Rattle Weed. 



Other Latin names: Cucuhalus Behen L.; Silene Cucubalus 

 Wibel.; Silene vulgaris (Moench) Garcke; Silene inflata Smith; 

 Behen vulgaris Moench. 



Introduced from Europe. Perennial, with deep running 

 rootstocks, which send up many barren shoots and branched 

 flowering stems, erect or nearly so. The whole plant is pale 

 green and in the common form perfectly smooth. Stems 1 foot 

 to 18 inches high, forming large tufts. Leaves ovate-lance- 

 shaped, in pairs, meeting round the stems. Flowers white, 

 nearly an inch across, drooping, the corolla divisions deeply 

 divided. Calyx much inflated, pale green veined with light 

 purple, 5-toothed at the contracted apex. Capsule globular- 

 ovoid, included in the calyx, opening by 5 short backward curved 

 teeth. 



The seed (Plate 73, fig. 22) is round-kidney-shaped, about 

 1/20 of an inch in diameter, covered with concentric rows of 

 small, cone-shaped tubercles. The seeds of this species and of 

 Night-flowering Catchfly and White Cockle are so similar that 

 they can be separated only by an expert. On plates 72 and 73, 

 the average characteristics of the seeds of each species are re- 

 presented. Note specially the arrangement of the tubercles. 



Time of flowering: May to July; seeds ripe in July, 



Propagation: By seeds and rootstocks. 



Occurrence: By roadsides, on railway banks, in pastures, 

 hay and grass fields, throughout the eastern provinces. 



Injury: This weed has become widely distributed during 

 recent years and has proven to be the most troublesome of the 

 cockles. Wherever established, it crowds out cultivated plants 

 and is difficult to suppress by cultivation. It seeds freely and the 

 seeds are hard to separate from red clover seed. 



