THE CORN-COCKLE — continued. 
The name Lychnis is employed by Theophrastus and is, no doubt, derived from 
the Greek \vyyo 9, luchnos , a lamp ; but its significance is doubtful. It has been 
suggested that the thick cottony substance on the leaves of some species, or some 
similar plant, was employed as wicks for lamps ; but, as some species have brilliant 
orange flowers, the name may only refer to their flame-like colour. The etymology 
of Githago is even more doubtful. It is employed by Jerome Bock, who published 
a herbal in 1532, styling himself Hieronymus Tragus ; and he, no doubt, meant 
that it resembled the plant spoken of by Pliny as Gith ; but it is difficult to 
determine what this was. There is no doubt, however, as to Linne’s Agrostemma , 
which is from the Greek aypov, agrou , of a field, crrep/aa, stemma , a crown, a 
deserved tribute to this beautiful flower. 
Like many other cornfield weeds, it is an annual ; but its tall, slightly branched 
stem, two to three feet high, bears up to the top of the corn its large terminal flower. 
Few soils can apparently be too dry and no situation too sunny for this largest and 
loveliest of our British Campions. Both its stem and its relatively insignificant 
linear leaves are densely covered with white hairs, a character suggesting its supposed 
origin in the dry regions of Asia Minor. The five long, pointed, leafy lobes 
projecting from the leathery calyx between the rounded apices of the petals are one 
of the distinctive characters of the proposed genus, whilst the length of the ovoid 
calyx-tube, which is from one to one and a half inches, restricts its honey to long- 
tongued Lepidoptera. The deep rose-colour of the petals fades towards the centre of 
the flower into their long white claws. It is suffused with a wonderful bluish bloom 
and traversed by finely-ruled dark lines as honey-guides. The included stamens 
generally mature before the stigmas, though this character is said to vary locally, and 
occasionally smaller flowers without stamens are found. The large ovoid capsule 
bursts by five teeth, shaking out the large black seeds, wedge-shaped segments of a 
sphere with rows of projecting points. These were formerly abundant in seed corn ; 
but modern high farming means purer seed and cleaner land, so that this, and many 
another pretty weed, is far less commonly seen in our cornfields. 
Unknown apparently to the ancient Greeks, Romans, Britons, or Germans, it 
has been suggested that the Russian name Kukael , the Polish Kakol, and the Kokkol 
of the Anglo-Saxon Gospels, where the Authorised Version has “tares,” may point 
to our early trade with Russia in the days of Alfred. Some of our cornfield weeds 
may go back to the days when Imperial Rome filled her granaries from distant 
provinces ; or even to the great waves of human migration in the Ages of Bronze 
and Stone ; and it is suggested that this Corn-cockle is an unintentionally cultivated 
form of a species (. Agrostemma gracilis Boissier) native to Anatolia. 
