BLADDER CAMPION. 103 



are always small, and are often entirely absent. The 

 calyx, from its size and inflated character, is a very con- 

 spicuous feature ; it rapidly increases in size as the buds 

 swell and open and develop into fully-expanded flowers, 

 and these in turn give place to the fruit. The calyx is 

 very light in colour, of a more yellowish green frequently 

 than the rest of the plant, and very prominently veined and 

 reticulated. The whole is of one piece, or what is botani- 

 cally termed monophyllous, but it bears at its summit five 

 large teeth. The stamens are ten in number and the styles 

 three. The bladder campion should be looked for in pasture- 

 land, on railway banks, waste places, and by the roadside. 

 Its flowering-season is from June to August. It is com- 

 monly distributed over Britain. 



The word campion is said to be derived from the 

 use of the flower as a wreath for the champions at 

 the public games in the middle ages. This may 

 possibly have been so, but it seems in the last degree 

 unlikely, as the plants would have to be searched for 

 far and wide to procure them in sufficient quantities for 

 any considerable number of chaplets, and all the 

 campions droop very quickly after gathering. Many 

 other and more suitable plants could be obtained for the 

 crowns of the victors. The prefix to our present 

 species refers, of course, to its bladder-like calyx, and 

 the specific title inflata scarcely needs translation, so 

 evidently does it bear its meaning on its face. The plant 

 was once called the cucubalus, a word derived from the 

 Greek words signifying a bad or noxious growth. It is 

 evident that the name, first employed by Pliny, has been 

 diverted from the plant to which he applied it, and to 

 which it may have been most appropriate, and has by some 



