22 FLOWERS OF THE WOODS AND COPSES 



Cuckoo Pint. Woodlands of this common but beautiful English wild 

 flower, which helps with Hedge Garlic and Greater Stitchwort to 

 beautify also the country lanes, are a lovely sight in spring. 



The Red Campion is a tall, erect plant, with several stems with 

 thickened joints, often bent, round, branched, the upper ones dividing. 

 The radical leaves are blunt above, stalked, the stem -leaves linear 

 lance-shaped, tapering. The whole plant is clothed with hairs. The 



stems often have a purple 

 tinge. Numbers of plants 

 grow together, and a bed 

 of Red Campion in bloom 

 is a thing to be remem- 

 bered. The plant grows 

 in tufts with many leafy 

 shoots. 



The flowers grow on 

 dichotomous panicles, 

 regularly dividing into 

 two, and the plants are 

 dioecious. The petals are 

 divided into two nearly 

 to the base, with narrow, 

 spreading lobes. The 

 calyx- teeth are triangular. 

 The capsule is nearly 

 rounded, with ten teeth, 

 the latter bent back. 

 The seeds are black, and 

 have rows of points 

 arranged lengthwise. 



Red Campion is often 



3 ft. high. The flowers are in bloom in June and July. The plant 

 is perennial, and may be propagated by division. 



The flowers are female or pistillate, and male or staminate, and 

 though flowering by day (diurnal) they have much the same character 

 as Lychnis alba, but are conspicuous and large, and adapted to visits 

 by insects with a fairly long proboscis. Red Campion is dioecious, and 

 the pistillate plant is more robust. A black or brown powder is pro- 

 duced by a fungus, Ustilago antherorum, which attacks the stamens in 

 this and L. alba, and the spores are dispersed like pollen by insects. 

 The seeds are adapted to wind dispersal. The capsule has a wide 



Photo. G. B. Dixon 



RED CAMPION (Lychnis dioica, L.) 



