THE WHITE CAMPION. 143 



suggest that very possibly the Latin campus, an open field 

 or plain, may have been the root of the vulgar name of a 

 plant that is so distinctly campestral in its origin. 



The white campion is very commonly met with in 

 hedgerows and fields throughout Britain. It will ordinarily 

 be found in flower by about the middle of May, and lasts in 

 blossom until the end of October, or even later. It is a 

 rather coarse-looking plant, the stems and leaves clothed 

 with long and conspicuous hairs, and at the joints of the 

 stems we often find a certain viscidity. The plant grows 

 to about the height of two feet, and has a decidedly upright 

 growth, but few branches being given off laterally, and those 

 not diverging at any great angle from the line of the main 

 stems. The leaves, as in all the plants that form the order, 

 are arranged in pairs on the stem, and are of simple 

 outline. In none of the plants of the order do we find the 

 jagged or serrated edge to the leaf that is so marked a 

 feature in the foliage of many other plants. The garden 

 pink and the sweet-william are cultivated species of the 

 order that will be easily accessible for the purpose of 

 observation and comparison. The upper leaves of the 

 white campion are stalkless, as shown in our figure, while 

 the lower ones are borne on leaf-stems. The flowers are 

 few in number, but conspicuous from the purity of their 

 tint and large size ; occasionally they are found of a pale 

 pink, but this is a variation but seldom met with. The 

 plant is ordinarily what is termed by botanists dioecious, 

 a term used when all the flowers of a given plant are either 

 all male, or stamen-bearing, or else female, pistil-bearing. 

 A section cut downwards through the centre of the flowers 

 will at once determine their nature; and, indeed, the 

 external appearance of the calyx is, in the fully-developed 



