night blooming flowers

i am not a morning person. i used to be. but now at age 59 i am not. i love sleep, and am a big believer in the importance of sleep for cellular repair. so, i try to get at least 9 hours a night. on a typical day, i get up around 8:30 AM, and like to get a slow start to my day with two cups of tea before i’m ready to dig in. this explains why i never seem to catch these white campions when they are in full bloom. turns out, they are night bloomers. i may notice them in the morning, and make a mental note to photograph them, but by the time i set up my STILL corner under the kitchen windows, all the blooms have disappeared. i always assumed they were simply short-lived and had already withered and died. but alas, they had instead pulled back inside their bladder for the day. i may try tomorrow to catch a few blooms first thing in the morning, but it’s the striking bladders that capture my attention most anyway. like so many of our roadside wildflowers, campion is not-native but naturalized all over the north america. it is thought to have arrived as a component of ship ballast. if i had to guess at the percentage of plants in my 3 acres of woodland that are native versus non-native, my educated guess would be 50-50. i don’t know if this is good or bad. there is no turning back the clock. it is well known that native plants are healthier for the ecosystem as the indigenous critters are highly adapted to rely on exactly those native plants. should i pull this white campion from my along my driveway, or let it be? the roadsides are loaded with it right now. my few strays are but a drop in the proverbial bucket. tell me what you do?

white campion (Silene latifolia subsp. alba)