Silene noctiflora

Night-flowering catchfly

Family: Caryophyllaceae · Type: annual · Not Native

Night-flowering catchfly is a naturalized annual found in the Cascade Range, Sierra Nevada Foothills, southern California coastal areas, and expected in other regions in open, disturbed areas and fields at elevations below 1,900 meters. Flowering during summer, this plant produces white to pale pink flowers with delicate, slightly ascending blossoms. Growing 20 to 60 centimeters tall with generally erect stems that are rough-hairy and glandular toward the top, the plant has a distinctive growth habit. Its leaves are progressively smaller from bottom to top, with lower leaves 6 to 12 centimeters long and elliptic to oblanceolate, while upper leaves narrow to 1 to 7 centimeters long and lanceolate. The tiny red-brown seeds are approximately 1 millimeter long, developing in an ovoid fruit with a short 1 to 3 millimeter stalk.

Habitat: Open, disturbed areas, fields

Bloom period: Summer

Elevation: < 1900 m

Bioregions: CaR, SNF, SCo, expected elsewhere

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