Caryophyllaceae

Chickweeds, pinks and campions

From Streeter et al., 2016, 'Family Key':

"Flowers regular; petals free, stamens <=x2 the number of sepals.

Sepals and petals 4 or 5; stamens 5 or 10; leaves opposite, entire; inflorescence usually a cyme"

For the specimen(s) below, hover over image in gallery for description and select for a full screen preview.

ID: 032

Date: 10 Jun 2024

Locality: Page Hill Avenue, Buckingham

Location (Lat/Long): 52.004, -0.977

Landscape/habitat: Beneath a tree by the side of a path and road. At the top of a slope of grassland.

Identification notes: I saw that 1 of these were in flower.

From Streeter et al. (2016, p. 120) key to Campions and Catchflies.

• 'Plant not scrambling...'

• 'Styles 3, or styles 5 in flowers without stamens, or flowers with stamens only' (my emphasis, as you can see from the photos there are only 5 styles, no stamens shown)

• 'Inflorescence not whorl-like groups of flowers'

• 'Styles 5, plants dioecious'

• 'Flowers white', so White Campion Silene latifolia

From description p.136, this is found on 'roadsides', flowers 'May - Sep'. Key character, has '5 styles' with flowers 'unisexual' and 'calyx tube hairy' as seen in the photos in the gallery.

Name: White Campion, Silene latifolia

References

Streeter, D., Hart-Davies, C., Hardcastle, A., Cole, F. and Harper, L. (2016) Collins wild flower guide. Revised and updated 2nd edition. edn. London: William Collins.