Bouncingbet

Saponaria officinalis, long cultivated for its showy flowers, is a widely naturalized, sometimes troublesome weed. It may persist for years about abandoned home sites. “Double”-flowered horticultural forms, which may lack functional stamens, also occur in the wild, where locally they may be as common as, or even more common than, “single”-flowered forms.

In former times, the leaves of this species were gathered and either soaked or boiled in water, the resulting liquid being used for washing as a liquid soap. Because of its saponin content, the species can be poisonous upon ingestion, in much the same manner as Agrostemma githago.

This species is used medicinally and as a soap.

Plants perennial, colonial. Stems erect, simple or branched distally, 30-90 cm. Leaves: petiole often absent or winged, 0.1-1.5 cm; blade strongly 3(-5)-veined, elliptic to oblanceolate or ovate, 3-11(-15) × 1.5-4.5 cm. Cymes dense to open. Pedicels 1-5 mm. Flowers sometimes double; calyx green or reddish, often cleft, 15-25 mm, glabrous or rarely with scattered trichomes; petals pink to white, often drying to dull purple, blade 8-15 mm. Capsules ca. 15-20 mm. Seeds 1.6-2 mm wide. 2n = 28.

Herbs perennial, 30--70 cm tall. Axial root stout, fleshy, rhizome thin, many branched. Stem simple or branched above, usually glabrous. Leaves ovate or ovate-lanceolate, 5--10 × 2--4 cm, 3- or 5-veined, base attenuate, slightly connate, semiclasping, apex acute. Inflorescence a thyrse, cymules 3--7-flowered; bracts lanceolate, margin and midvein sparsely hirtellous, apex long acuminate. Pedicel 3--8 mm, sparsely and shortly pubes-cent. Flowers large. Calyx green, sometimes dark purple, tubular, 1.8--2 cm × 2.5--3.5 mm, obscurely 20-veined; calyx teeth broadly ovate, apex acute. Petal limb white or pink, cuneate-obovate, 1--1.5 cm, apex emarginate; coronal scales linear. Gynophore ca. 1 mm. Stamens and styles exserted. Capsule cylindric-ovoid, ca. 1.5 cm. Seeds black-brown, globose-reniform, slightly compressed, 1.8--2 mm, tuberculate. Fl. Jun--Sep. 2n = 30.

introduced; Alta., B.C., Man., N.B., Nfld. and Labr. (Nfld.), N.S., Ont., P.E.I., Que., Sask.; Ala., Ariz., Ark., Calif., Colo., Conn., Del., D.C., Fla., Ga., Idaho, Ill., Ind., Iowa, Kans., Ky., La., Maine, Md., Mass., Mich., Minn., Miss., Mo., Mont., Nebr., Nev., N.H., N.J., N.Mex., N.Y., N.C., N.Dak., Ohio, Okla., Oreg., Pa., R.I., S.C., S.Dak., Tenn., Tex., Utah, Vt., Va., Wash., W.Va., Wis., Wyo.; Eurasia; introduced in Mexico, South America, Asia (India), Africa (Egypt), Australia.

Flowering spring-fall.

Waste places, streamsides, fields, roadsides; 0-2600m.

Cultivated as an ornamental in parks, usually escaping. NE China [native to W Asia and Europe].

Lychnis officinalis (Linnaeus) Scopoli; Silene saponaria Fries ex Willkomm & Lange.