Americanized Night-Flowering Catchfly Gardens: Pestless Ground Cover

Summary: Americanized night-flowering catchfly gardens add ground cover, pest control and wild beauty but abet viruses and alter crop yields and species diversity.

night-flowering catchfly flowers and foliage; Monday, Nov. 3, 2008: Homer Edward Price (homeredwardprice), CC BY 2.0 Generic, via Wikimedia Commons

Americanized night-flowering catchfly gardens acquire available light, moisture and nutrients, advance over croplands and pastures and allow tobacco streak virus even though they are fragrant in pink and attack ground reflection loss.

Night-flowering catchfly, nicknamed clammy cockle, night-flowering cockle, night-flowering silene and sticky cockle, becomes problematic to farmers and ranchers by battering crop yields and bothering species diversity. It can be confused with white cockle, related herbal host of cucumber mosaic, lychnis ring spot, tobacco necrosis, tobacco ring spot and tobacco streak viral diseases. The Alberta, Nova Scotia, Quebec and Saskatchewan provincial and the federal governments in Canada and the Washington state government in the United States deplore white cockle.

The Canadian and the Mexican federal governments and the Canadian provincial governments in British Columbia, Manitoba, Quebec and Saskatchewan expose night-flowering catchfly to similar weed sanctions.

Seedling stages festoon short-, stiff-haired stalks with club-shaped, 0.22- to 0.59-inch- (5.5- to 15-millimeter-) long, 0.12- to 0.18-inch- (3- to 4.5-millimeter-) wide embryonic leaves called cotyledons.

The weedy herb in the Caryophyllaceae family of herbaceous carnations and pinks grows oblong foliage, with hairy margins, on hairy stalks for its first leaf stage. As few as one stem and as many as three stems, somewhat woody with swollen nodes, have mature, opposite-arranged, sticky-haired foliage at and above the base. Basal, 1.58- to 4.72-inch- (4- to 12-centimeter-) long, 0.79- to 1.58-inch- (2- to 4-centimeter-) wide foliage is oblong and stalked and upper foliage spatula-shaped and stalkless.

Americanized night-flowering catchfly gardens jumble June- through September-blooming fragrance amid 0.79- to 4.72-inch- (2- to 12-centimeter-) long, 0.12- to 1.58-inch- (3- to 40-millimeter-) wide upper foliage.

Night-flowering catchfly, scientifically named Silene noctiflora (night-flowering saliva), knows only three- to 15-flowered, white to pale pink inflorescences, called cymes, that keep tips for oldest flowers.

Fragrant, perfect, regular flowers, 0.79 to 0.98 inches (20 to 25 millimeters) across, load one pistil with three styles, five petals, five sepals and 10 stamens. Colorful, fragrant textures mingle when night-time makes visible deep-notched, 0.79- to 1.38-inch- (20- to 35-millimeter-) long petals and dark green, 10-veined, sticky-haired, 0.59-inch- (15-millimeter-) long sepals. Mature, stiff-haired, 7.87- to 39.37-inch- (20- to 100-centimeter-) tall night-flowering catchfly and white cockle, with sticky-haired, 10-veined male plants and 20-veined female plants nab insect pests.

Pollinated flowers offer Americanized night-flowering catchfly gardens dry, explosive, 185-seeded, three-chambered fruit capsules with mature, 0.98- to 1.58-inch- (25- to 40-millimeter-) long sepals, collectively called calyxes.

The annual or winter annual night-flowering catchfly, described by Swedish botanist Carl Linnaeus (May 23, 1707-Jan. 10, 1707), presents 2,600 gray, kidney-shaped seeds with warty bumps.

The germination of 0.04- to 0.05-inch- (1.1- to 1.3-millimeter-) long, 0.04- to 0.05-inch- (0.9- to 1.2-millimeter-) wide seeds quickens at 68 degrees Fahrenheit (20 degrees Celsius). Night-flowering catchfly remains 100 percent viable in soil for five years, after which the European native retains in-soil viability at 82 percent for an unknown timespan. Baby's breath, bladder campion, common chickweed, corn spurrey, cow cockle, mouse-ear chickweed and white cockle show respective 5-, 14-, 10-, 10-plus-, 3-, 60- and 20-year viabilities.

Americanized night-flowering catchfly gardens with campions, chickweeds, cockles, sandworts and spurrey tackle ground reflection loss reduction and natural insect pest controls away from crops and livestock.

night-flowering catchfly leaves; Monday, Nov. 3, 2008: Homer Edward Price (homeredwardprice), CC BY 2.0 Generic, via Flickr

Acknowledgment

My special thanks to talented artists and photographers/concerned organizations who make their fine images available on the internet.

Image credits:

night-flowering catchfly flowers and foliage; Monday, Nov. 3, 2008: Homer Edward Price (homeredwardprice), CC BY 2.0 Generic, via Wikimedia Commons @ https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Silene_noctiflora_by_Homer_Edward_Price.gif

night-flowering catchfly leaves; Monday, Nov. 3, 2008: Homer Edward Price (homeredwardprice), CC BY 2.0 Generic, via Flickr @ https://www.flickr.com/photos/28340342@N08/3000046069/

For further information:

Dickinson, Richard; and Royer, France. 2014. Weeds of North America. Chicago IL; London, England: The University of Chicago Press.

Linnaeus, Carl. 1753. "15. Silene noctiflora." Species Plantarum, vol. I: 419. Holmiae [Stockholm, Sweden]: Laurentii Salvii [Laurentius Salvius].
Available via Biodiversity Heritage Library @ http://biodiversitylibrary.org/page/358438

"Silene noctiflora L." Tropicos® > Name Search.
Available @ http://www.tropicos.org/Name/6300490

Weakley, Alan S.; Ludwig, J. Christopher; and Townsend, John F. 2012. Flora of Virginia. Edited by Bland Crowder. Fort Worth TX: BRIT Press, Botanical Research Institute of Texas.