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Silene undulata
Also called Gunpowder plant, Wild tobacco
Cape catchfly is a short-lived perennial herb from the Eastern Cape of South Africa, sometimes grown for its night-scented flowers. It needs consistently moist soil and sows and establishes best from seed in moisture-retentive ground.
Silene undulata (Xhosa: iindlela zimhlophe—"white ways/paths", also known as Silene capensis, and African dream root) is a plant native to the Eastern Cape of South Africa.
In cultivation, S. undulata is an easily grown, but moisture hungry herb. It is tolerant of extreme heat, >40 °C (104 °F), and moderate cold, −5 °C (23 °F). A moisture retentive seedbed is essential. The fragrant flowers open at night and close in the day. It is a biennial to short lived perennial and the root can be harvested after the second year.
Silene undulata is regarded by the Xhosa people as a sacred plant. Its root is traditionally used to induce vivid (and according to the Xhosa, prophetic) lucid dreams during the initiation process of traditional healers, classifying it a naturally occurring oneirogen similar to the more well-known dream herb Calea zacatechichi.
Moss campion · Pink Family · Silene banksia · Maltese-cross · Silene cognata · Weed silene · Crown-pink · Forked Catchfly · Ragged Robin · Silene flos-jovis · Common catchfly · Bladder campion
Text excerpted from the Wikipedia article Silene undulata by its contributors, under CC BY-SA 4.0; the excerpts and the care summary drawn from them are shared under the same licence.
The care summary was written by AI (Claude, Anthropic) from the sources on this page, with general growing knowledge where they are silent. Check before relying on it.
Life form, climate and native range: World Checklist of Vascular Plants, Royal Botanic Gardens, Kew (CC BY 3.0), reformatted; see Plants of the World Online.
