LXII.— THE CORN-COCKLE. 
Lychnis Githago Scopoli. 
T HE second and higher Sub-Family of the Caryophyllacea ?, the Silenoidew , has 
exstipulate leaves, a gamosepalous calyx, and hypogynous stamens. The 
flowers are often large, and as frequently rose-coloured, or some other shade of red, 
as they are white. Though the petals are not united, the tube formed by the 
gamosepalous calyx is so filled up by the claws of the petals and by the stamens as 
to render the honey at its base inaccessible to any but long-tongued bees and 
Lepidoptera. The blossoms of some white-flowered species open, or remain open, 
at night, or give off their perfume only at night, and are pollinated by night-flying 
moths. Many large-flowered, tubular forms are alpine plants, and are pollinated by 
butterflies, the group of insects which reaches the greatest mountain altitudes. 
The Sub-Family Silenoidect is divided into two Tribes, the Lychnide# and the 
Dianthe distinguished essentially by characters in the calyx, the seed, and its 
embryo. The Lychnide<e , including the genera Lychnis and Silene , the Campions and 
Catchflies, have additional or commissural ribs or veins in their calyx in addition to 
those forming the midribs of the five sepals. The hilum , or scar at which the seed 
is attached to its stalk, is, in this group, on the edge of the flattened seed ; and the 
embryo, or young plant within the seed, is curled in a ring round the albumen. On 
the contrary, the Dianthe or Pinks and Gypsophilas, have only five ribs to the 
calyx, the hilum on the face of their peltate seeds, and a straight embryo. 
Within the limits of the Tribe Lychnidea’ the genera are somewhat ill defined, 
the book character by which Lychnis is distinguished from Silene , viz. the possession 
of four or five styles with four, five, eight, or ten teeth to the capsule, as against the 
three styles and six capsule-teeth of Silene > not being constant. The genus Lychnis 
comprises some forty species, natives of North Temperate regions, six of them being 
British ; but the Corn-cockle ( L . Githago Scopoli) has, by many authorities, been 
made the type of a distinct genus, Githago of Bock, Adanson, and Desfontaines, or 
Agrostemma of Linne. In the other species, as also in Silene , each petal bears, at the 
junction of its vertical “claw ” with its horizontally spreading “limb,” a little scale- 
like outgrowth known as the “ligule,” which may or may not be divided into two 
lobes : in the Corn-cockle there is no such ligule. 
The general characters of the genus Lychnis are that they are annual, biennial, or 
perennial herbaceous plants, sometimes viscid with glandular hairs, with no bracts 
immediately below the flower, with a five-toothed, ten-veined calyx, five long-clawed 
petals, ten stamens, and five carpels. These last are united into a superior ovary 
which, though one-chambered above, is divided below into five. It is surmounted 
by five styles and forms a capsule splitting at the summit, when ripe, into ten teeth. 
The carpels may be four in number, or even three, in which last case the distinction 
from Silene disappears. 
