Plantae > Tracheophyta > Magnoliopsida > Caryophyllales > Caryophyllaceae > Silene > Silene latifolia

Silene latifolia (bladder campion; bladder-campion; White Campion)

Synonyms:

Wikipedia Abstract

Silene latifolia (formerly Melandrium album), the white campion is a dioecious flowering plant in the family Caryophyllaceae, native to most of Europe, Western Asia and Northern Africa. It is a herbaceous annual, occasionally biennial or a short-lived perennial plant, growing to between 40-80 centimetres tall. It is also known in the USA as bladder campion but should not be confused with Silene vulgaris, which is more generally called Bladder Campion.
View Wikipedia Record: Silene latifolia

Infraspecies

Silene latifolia alba (Bladder campion) (Attributes)
Silene latifolia latifolia

Attributes

Allergen Potential [1]  Medium-Low
Bee Flower Color [2]  Blue-Green
Flower Color [2]  White
Flower Type [3]  Dioecious
Hazards [3]  Although no mention of toxicity has been seen for this species, it does contain saponins. Although toxic, these substances are very poorly absorbed by the body and so tend to pass through without causing harm. They are also broken down by thorough cooking. Saponins are found in many plants, including several that are often used for food, such as certain beans. It is advisable not to eat large quantities of food that contain saponins. Saponins are much more toxic to some creatures, such as fish, and hunting tribes have traditionally put large quantities of them in streams, lakes etc in order to stupefy or kill the fish;
Lifespan [3]  Perennial
Pollinators [3]  Lepidoptera
Structure [5]  Herb
Usage [3]  The root is used as a soap substitute for washing clothes etc; The soap is obtained by simmering the root in hot water.
Height [3]  24 inches (0.6 m)
Light Preference [4]  Mostly Sunny
Soil Acidity [4]  Neutral
Soil Fertility [4]  Intermediate
Soil Moisture [4]  Mostly Dry
View Plants For A Future Record : Silene latifolia

Protected Areas

Ecosystems

Predators

Consumers

Parasitized by 
Erysiphe buhrii[8]
Puccinia behenis[8]
Puccinia chasmatis[8]

External References

USDA Plant Profile

NatureServe Explorer

Citations

Attributes / relations provided by
♦ 1Derived from Allergy-Free Gardening OPALS™, Thomas Leo Ogren (2000)
♦ 2Arnold SEJ, Faruq S, Savolainen V, McOwan PW, Chittka L, 2010 FReD: The Floral Reflectance Database — A Web Portal for Analyses of Flower Colour. PLoS ONE 5(12): e14287.
♦ 3Plants For A Future licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 License
♦ 4ECOFACT 2a Technical Annex - Ellenberg’s indicator values for British Plants, M O Hill, J O Mountford, D B Roy & R G H Bunce (1999)
♦ 5Kattge, J. et al. (2011b) TRY - a global database of plant traits Global Change Biology 17:2905-2935
♦ 6Ecology of Commanster
♦ 7Biological Records Centre Database of Insects and their Food Plants
♦ 8Jorrit H. Poelen, James D. Simons and Chris J. Mungall. (2014). Global Biotic Interactions: An open infrastructure to share and analyze species-interaction datasets. Ecological Informatics.
Abstract provided by DBpedia licensed under a Creative Commons License
Species taxanomy provided by GBIF Secretariat (2022). GBIF Backbone Taxonomy. Checklist dataset https://doi.org/10.15468/39omei accessed via GBIF.org on 2023-06-13; License: CC BY 4.0