Common Baby's-breath (Gypsophila paniculata)

Family - Pink Caryophyllaceae
Life Cycle - Simple perennial
Habitat - forage crops, hay fields, rangeland, roadsides, waste areas

Key Features

• Cotyledons and true leaves of seedling resemble each other
• Greyish-green "bloom" on stems and leaves due to glandular hair
• Delicate white "puffs" along prairie roadsides

Seedling

Cotyledons are linear. The true leaves are also linear, with entire margins and rounded tips. The leaves emerge in pairs and appear greyish-green. Seedlings are not often noticed.

Juvenile

Baby's-breath has a deep, penetrating root system. The plant is erect with freely-branching stems that are smooth and swollen at the nodes. Stems and leaves are covered with glandular hair to give a greyish-green, waxy "bloom". The leaves are opposite, entire-margined and linear to lanceolate with a single central vein.

Mature

Baby's-breath plants resemble large, white powder puffs along prairie roadsides. The many small, white-petalled flowers in an open-branched inflorescence give this delicate "puffy" appearance. Each flower develops into a multi-seeded capsule containing tiny black, snail-like seeds with minute bumps and ridges. The mature, brittle stem breaks at the base and tumbles with the wind to distribute seed.

Prohibited Noxious

Hoary Alyssum

Spotted Knapweed

Nodding Thistle

Noxious

Common Baby's-breath

Downy Brome

Great & Lesser Burdock

Scentless Chamomile

Yellow Clematis

White Cockle

Oxeye Daisy

Leafy Spurge

Common Tansy

Canada Thistle

Yellow Toadflax

Juvenile

Mature

Flower