Yesterday I found a patch of beautiful flowers with odd-looking balloons.
The balloons are “bladders” and the flowers are bladder campion (Silene vulgaris), an edible plant native to Europe that grows here like a weed.
The bladders are actually the sepals, fused into a calyx. The structure is so bulbous it looks as if it will prevent the flower from blooming but the tip of each bladder has five notches to guide the five white petals as they emerge.
Strange, yet festive, flowers.
(photo by D. Gordon E. Robinson from Wikimedia Commons. Click on the photo to see the original)
Those are so very pretty. Don’t think I’ve ever seen them in wild. Probably flowers like that in someone’s flower garden. Nice thing to some upon when walking I would think. Thanks for picture.
and it looks like they have a nice pod of insect eggs as well ….. hmmm … wonder what they’ll be?
Looks like Spittlebug to me.
If you hold a flower by the white petals and hit the back of your hand with the balloon, it pops!