Pink to Red Flowers 211 



MOSS CAMPION 



Silcne acaulis. Pink Family 



Closely caespitose, one to two inches high. Leaves: linear, crowded. 

 Flowers: small, solitary, subsessile or slightly raised on naked curved 

 peduncles; calyx narrowly campanulate; petals pink, purple or white, 

 obcordate. 



The Moss Campion will be found by those who climb 

 to great altitudes, for it grows near the highest sum- 

 mits of the mountains and has been discovered at the im- 

 mense elevation of 10,000 feet. It is a dwarf arctic-alpine 

 plant. The tiny leaves, which are very numerous and ex- 

 tremely narrow and pointed, distinguish it from Saxifraga 

 oppositifolia, or Mountain Saxifrage, which has similar 

 flowers but distinctly broader leaves. 



Close to the eternal snows, where the last line of vege- 

 tation grows prostrate upon the earth, so rare the air, so 

 scarce and poor the soil, 



" There, cleaving to the ground, it lies 

 With multitude of purple eyes 

 Spangling a cushion green like moss." 



Surely Wordsworth must have found the Moss Campion 

 amongst his beloved Grasmere Hills, otherwise he could 

 not have penned so perfect a description of its starry flow- 

 ers with their five pink, purple or very occasionally white 

 petals wide-blown by the mountain breeze. 



The Moss Campion has a very large tap-root, and spring- 

 ing from it are the slender branching stems, which form 

 dense tufts from six to twenty inches in diameter and re- 

 semble a coarse moss. Down into these tufts the flowers 

 are closely set. 



