LADY'S SMOCK 13 



No water-meadow would be complete in spring without its Lady's 

 Smocks, which are dotted up and down the low-lying districts border- 

 ing our streams and rivers from Land's End to John o' Groat's. It 

 may be found also in hilly districts where springs issue from the 

 hillside, and make the meadows moist and damp on their flanks. It is 

 found in true marsh and bog-land, and once formerly in the Fens. 



The Cuckoo Flower has the rosette habit. The rootstock is short 



LADY'S SMOCK (Cardamine pratensis, L.) 



and stout, and the plant is sometimes stoloniferous. The stem is, as a 

 rule, round in section, rarely angular, tall and erect. The leaves are 

 pinnate, the lobes arranged each side of a common stalk. The radical 

 leaves have small leaflets rather round and somewhat angular, and are 

 stalked, whilst those of the upper leaves are more or less stalkless, 

 narrow linear or lance-shaped, entire and longer. 



The flowers are large, of a delicate lilac tint, or white. The petals 

 are large, three times as long as the calyx, spreading, inversely egg- 

 shaped. The stamens are half the length of the petals, and the anthers 

 are yellow. The style is stout and short. The stigma is small. The 

 pod is erect, on a slender, ultimate flower-stalk, long, flattened at the 



