Pink flowers whose five petals are each cut into four narrow lobes, giving a tattered look, in a damp meadow in late spring
Ragged robin, Silene flos-cuculi.
Nature · Wildflowers & flowers
Ragged robin
Native · flowers May–Jun · damp meadows, fens and wet woodland
Silene flos-cuculi — Caryophyllaceae
A dishevelled, pink-flowered perennial of wet meadows and fens, whose petals are torn into four narrow strips so that each flower looks tattered. It flowers when the hay is being made, and folk tradition tied it to St Barnabas's Day. Loss of damp meadows has made it scarcer across many counties, though it is still classed as of least concern.
How to spot them
- ▸Deep pink (occasionally white) flowers, each of the five petals cut into four narrow, ragged lobes
- ▸Slender, sticky-rough, upright stems up to about 75 cm, with narrow leaves
- ▸Reddish-purple, ribbed calyx tube behind each flower, shaped like a little urn
- ▸Damp meadows, fens, marshy pastures and wet woodland rides
- ▸Confused with red campion: campion has five broad, notched petals, wider hairy leaves and grows in hedgerows and woods
How to know it
Dedicated to St Barnabas, whose feast day on 11 June fell during haymaking when this pink flower was found in the hay
Ragged robin (Plantlife).
In Shakespeare's time it was known as 'crow-flower', and it is one of the flowers in Ophelia's garland
Ragged robin (Plantlife).
Its species name means 'flower of the cuckoo', because it blooms around the time the cuckoo arrives
Silene flos-cuculi — ragged robin. Not to be confused with lady's smock, also called cuckoo flower.
Long-tongued bees find this damp-meadow pink particularly attractive
Ragged robin (Plantlife).
Its numbers have fallen in many counties mainly because of habitat loss to agriculture, though nationally it is of least concern
Ragged robin (Plantlife).
Quick-fire facts
- •Family Caryophyllaceae, the pink family; the epithet flos-cuculi means 'cuckoo flower'
- •Plantlife gives a flowering season of May to June
- •Petals are divided into four narrow lobes, and the leaves are narrow and rough to touch
- •Dedicated to St Barnabas: haymaking took place around his feast day, 11 June, when it would have been found among the hay
- •In Shakespeare's time it was known as crow-flower and is one of the flowers in Ophelia's garland in Hamlet
- •In the Victorian language of flowers it symbolised ardour, aversion and wit
- •Particularly attractive to long-tongued bees; also visited by butterflies and day-flying moths
- •Plantlife reports local declines in many counties, mainly from habitat loss to agriculture, but overall classes it of least concern
- •A plant of the damp, unimproved meadows that have suffered most: an estimated 97% of lowland unimproved grassland in England and Wales was lost between 1930 and 1984 (Fuller 1987, cited by the JNCC)
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Sources
- Plantlife — Ragged Robin (Silene flos-cuculi)
- JNCC — SSSI Guidelines: Chapter 3 Lowland Grasslands