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Soapwort produces clusters of 3/4-1" flowers from the tips of terminal stems and branches. Individual flowers have a 1" long, green or reddish, sometimes hairy, cylindrical calyx; a corolla with five spreading (later reflexed), pink to white, oblong petals/lobes with a notched tip; 10 white stamens with pale yellow anthers that protrude from the throat of the flower; and a similarly protruding, divided white style. The calyx persists as an inflated seed capsule filled with 15-75 tiny dark brown, kidney-shaped seeds. Soapwort might be mistaken for a phlox, but the stamens and style in phlox are always hidden in the calyx tube, never protruding as in soapwort, and soapwort has leaves with three obvious longitudinal veins. Soapwort contains saponins in both the foliage and (especially) the seeds that make a frothy soap-like lather when boiled (and were once used as a soap substitute), but caution is recommended — the saponins are toxic. Herbivores generally avoid this plant.

Saponaria

Saponaria officinalis

soapwort [Blooms: Jun-Jul]