White Campion
These were blooming over our septic tank drain field on July 1, 2016. The plants stand about knee-height.
The most distinctive thing about them is their flowers, which have a prominent “pouch” that the petals stick out of.
These are similar to the “bladder campions” that I posted back on December 24, although not quite the same. The pouch has more pronounced green veins, and fits more snugly around the seed pod.
The seed pod itself is more bullet-shaped[1] than the pod of the bladder campion, too.
So, as one might expect from the common features, this is also a campion, specifically the White Campion, Silene latifolia. And, like its relative, this is also an accidental import from the Old World. It was introduced to the Americas pretty early on, probably from seeds carried in ship ballast.
Wikipedia says that it is sometimes used as a medicinal herb, but oddly doesn’t say what kind of illness it is supposed to treat. I suspect it might just be a component of “snake oil”-type tonics, and doesn’t actually do anything specific.
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[1] When I was a kid (about 6 or 7 years old), I used to play with these pods a lot. They make excellent space capsules.
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I wondered about the pollinator, so found this on Nature Gate: “Efficient white campion pollinators are night butterflies and small hawk moths. Large hawk moths suck the nectar through their long proboscises without touching the stamens or pistils – from the plant’s point of view they are only stealing its nectar.”