Ontario
Weeds: White cockle
Table of Contents
- Name
- Other Names
- Family
- General Description
- Stems and Roots
- Flowers and Fruit
- Habitat
- Related Links
Name: White cockle, Silene alba
(Mill.) E. H. L. Krause
Other Names: MELAL, lychnide blanche,
compagnon blanc, Evening lychnis, White campion, oeillet de Dieu,
floquet, Lychnis alba Mill.
Family: Pink Family (Caryophyllaceae)
General Description: Biennial or short-lived
perennial, reproducing only by seed. Stems erect, 30-120 cm (1-4 ft.)
high, round, swollen at nodes, hairy but not sticky, usually several
from a coarse branching crown on a single, fleshy taproot. It is distinguished
from Purple cockle by its broader leaves and white or pinkish flowers
with short calyx lobes; from Cow cockle, Bouncingbet and Bladder campion
by its hairy leaves and stem; and from Night-flowering catchfly by
its comparative lack of stickiness, biennial or short-lived perennial
habit, unisexual flowers, seedpod with 5 styles, opening by 10 teeth,
and the short lobes and weakly branching veins on the calyx tube.
Photos and Pictures
White cockle. A. Seedling with 3 pairs of true leaves. B. Base
of 2-year-old flowering plant. C. Flowering stem of plant with female
flowers. D. Seedpod with 10 teeth.
Stems & Roots: Seedlings pale yellowish-green;
all leaves opposite (2 per node), the first few pairs usually appearing
as a rosette, or on an elongating stem when partly shaded by other plants,
softly hairy on both surfaces with longer hair on the edges of the leafstalks;
margins of leaf blades somewhat wavy or wrinkled; middle and upper leaves
stalkless, entire (without teeth), hairy, 2.5-10 cm (1-4½ in.)
long, lance-shaped to elliptic but tapering to a point.
Flowers & Fruit: Flowers white, large
and showy, unisexual, all flowers on 1 plant with 5 united sepals, 5
deeply lobed petals and either male, having 10 stamens but no pistil,
or female, having 1 pistil with 5 slender styles but no stamens; sepals
5, united along their edges to form a tubular calyx with 5 short lobes
at the tip; calyx cylindrical in male flowers, usually purplish-green
and distinctly 10-veined lengthwise; calyx of female flowers narrowly
ovoid at first but becoming wide-ovoid to nearly spherical as the seedpod
expands inside, green, with 5 very prominent lengthwise veins lined
up with the 5 pointed lobes and usually 3 much fainter veins between
the pairs of prominent ones for a total of 20 veins; seedpods firm,
10-15 mm (2/5-3/5 in.) long, smooth and hairless but usually remaining
surrounded by the calyx tube, opening by 10 short teeth at the tip,
releasing many small (1.2 mm, 1/20 in. across) kidney-shaped, grayish-orange,
slightly rough seeds. Flowers and sets seed all summer.
Habitat: White cockle is common in
pastures, roadsides, waste areas, gardens and occasionally in cultivated
fields throughout southern Ontario but is comparatively rare in
the north and northwest.
Related Links
... on general Weed
topics
... on weed identification, order OMAFRA Publication 505: Ontario Weeds
... on weed control, order OMAFRA Publication 75: Guide To Weed Control
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