Silene latifolia

White campion, White Campion

Family: Caryophyllaceae · Type: perennial · Not Native

White campion is a naturalized perennial herb found in coastal and central California regions including the North Coast, southern Sierra Nevada foothills, Central Valley, San Francisco Bay Area, and Southern California in fields and roadsides at elevations below 1,000 meters. Flowering from summer to fall, this plant produces white flowers with broad petals 24 to 40 millimeters long that are nearly entire or slightly two-lobed. Growing with erect stems 30 to 100 centimeters tall that are rough-hairy and slightly glandular toward the top, it has a sparse branching caudex. Its leaves are distinctive, with lower leaves 5 to 10 centimeters long and oblanceolate, gradually becoming smaller and more lanceolate toward the stem's top. The fruit is an ovoid capsule with a short stalk, developing from an inflated calyx that becomes significantly larger in seed production.

Habitat: Fields, roadsides

Bloom period: Summer-fall

Elevation: < 1000 m

Bioregions: NCo, NCoRO, s SNF, n SNH?, GV, SnFrB, SCo?

California counties: Los Angeles, Siskiyou, Tulare, Plumas, Mariposa, Modoc, Nevada, Placer, San Francisco, Shasta, Santa Barbara

Data from The California Species Project — 14,000+ California species with verified data from CNPS, CDFW, USFWS, Jepson eFlora, Cal-IPC, and more.