Sea Campion - White - Wild Flowers - Native Wildflowers of The Western Isles - Scotland
A small, clump-forming perennial that is a native plant to the Western isles. The clump forming plant grows on the coastal cliff tops as well as on shingle or grassland. It has a high tolerance for salt. The plant is related to the carnation and pinks family.

The white flowers with their inflated, bladder-like calyces grow on short stalks and cover the plan. The flowers are in bloom from May and throughout till late July. The plant lives the sun - and thrives in the well drained soil on the clifftops.

The lovely white flowers are between 6ins to 12 ins in height and usually there is just one flower for each stem which is unlike other campions which tend to have several flowers on one stem.

This lovely wildflower plant has tiny greyish green leaves, growing in pairs all the way up the stems.		Lovely white wildflowers - the sea campions are very often to be seen growing alongside the pink thrift
The photo below shows a close up of the Sea Campion leaves, they are slighly fleshy, this helps then keep moisture in and protect the plant from the winds. The leaves are wax covered and as you can see are pointed at the endss. You can also see that there is a huge caterpillar enjoying the leaf.     Names for the Campion - Deadmens Bells One of the names given to this lovely white flowering plant is that of "Deadmen's Bells" - so called as it was thought to be not easy to reach these flowers as they grow so high up on the cliff tops as to be unreachable - and that if one did get up there to pick the lovely white flowers it was thought that one would be tempting death