II2 FLOWERS OF THE CORNFIELDS 



Wild), Grandmother's Nightcap, Plum-puddings, White Robin, Snake's 

 flower, Thunder Bolts, Thunder-flower. 



ESSENTIAL SPECIFIC CHARACTERS: 



48. Lychnis alba, Mill. Stem tall, branched above, leaves oblong, 

 downy, flowers white, fragrant at night, petals 2 -cleft, calyx-teeth 

 linear, capsule conical. 



Corn Cockle (Lychnis Githago, Scop.) 



As yet the Corn Cockle has not been met with in any Glacial or 

 other early deposits. It is found in the Temperate Zone in Europe, 

 Siberia, Western Asia, as far as Persia. It has been introduced into 

 the United States. In every county of Great Britain will you find this 

 plant except Mid Lanes, Stirling, Mid Perth, Westerness, Main 

 Argyle, East and W T est Sutherland, Caithness, Hebrides, Shetlands. 

 It was considered to be a colonist by Watson. 



A district without Corn Cockles is as bad as one in which Red 

 Campion is absent. Both are well-known country favourites. But 

 while the last is found only on uncultivated ground, the Corn Cockle 

 is essentially a follower of the plough, and is seldom found but in 

 cornfields. But the seeds which are reaped with the corn when ripe 

 get amongst fowl corn, being sifted into the offal or winnowing, and 

 commonly appear in poultry runs, having been used for poultry corn. 



The Corn Cockle is a rigid, tall, slender, repeatedly dividing, 

 hollow-stemmed plant, very hairy, with swollen joints. The leaves 

 are oblong, narrowly elliptic, keeled, at the base united, hairy both 

 sides, with the longest hairs at the base. 



The flowers are purple, they are not crowned and enclosed by 

 longer linear green sepals, the petals being entire, and with long- 

 claws or stalks and with no scale on the blade. The flowers are 

 single on long stalks. The capsule is 5 -toothed, and the seeds have 

 a shagreen surface, and are large, black, wedge-shaped or kidney- 

 shaped with rows of points, the capsule being as large as an 

 acorn. 



The Corn Cockle is often 3 ft. in height. It flowers from June 

 to July, and is an annual. 



The nectaries are situated, as in Dianthus, at the bottom of a long, 

 narrow tube, and from the position of the honey the flower is adapted 

 to pollination by long-tongued Lepidoptera. The anthers ripen first, 

 the stigma later, but occasionally together. In the order of develop- 

 ment of the anthers (in some flowers there are no stamens) it resembles 



