Pink-red flowers with five notched petals on hairy stems along woodland edges from May, following the bluebells
Red campion — Silene dioica.
Nature · Wildflowers & flowers
Red campion
Native · flowers May–Sep · woodland edges, hedge banks and verges
Silene dioica — Caryophyllaceae
Red campion is the pink-red flower that follows the bluebells on hedge banks and woodland edges from May, with five deeply notched petals. Male and female flowers are on different plants. It hybridises with white campion where the two meet, producing pinkish-white plants. It is also an ancient woodland indicator.
How to spot them
- ▸Bright pink-red flowers with five petals, each notched to about halfway, rising from a tubular, purple-brown calyx
- ▸Male flowers have a narrower calyx; female flowers have a fatter, more inflated calyx
- ▸Hairy stems and hairy, opposite, pointed-oval leaves
- ▸Male and female flowers grow on separate plants (dioecious)
- ▸White campion (Silene latifolia) is the look-alike: white flowers, sticky-hairy stems, more open and often scented at night. Where they grow together the two hybridise, giving pinky-white flowers
How to know it
The pink-red parent of a hybrid that turns up pale pink where it grows beside its white-flowered cousin
Red campion crosses with white campion to give Silene × hampeana.
Folklore says the flowers guard bees' honey stores and shield fairies from discovery
Red campion.
Its genus name may come from the Greek for saliva, in allusion to the sticky substance the plant exudes on its stems
Red campion — Silene.
Flowering around St James's feast day, it became the flower of that saint in the Anglican church
Red campion.
Old names include adder's flower and Robin Hood, and seeds were used against snakebite in traditional medicine
Red campion.
Male and female blooms are on separate plants, and a good patch of this pink-red flower is an ancient-woodland indicator
Red campion — dioecious.
Quick-fire facts
- •Family Caryophyllaceae, the carnation family; Silene dioica — 'dioica' means two houses
- •Woodland Trust: flowers May to September; an ancient woodland indicator
- •Common names include adder's flower, Robin Hood and cuckoo flower
- •Female plants can produce thousands of seeds
- •Pollinated by bees, butterflies and hoverflies; large white butterflies take its nectar
- •Hybridises with white campion (Silene latifolia) with pink-white flowers (Plantlife); the hybrid is called Silene × hampeana
- •Associated with St James because it flowers around his feast day
- •Mary Howitt's poem 'Summer Woods' mentions it
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Sources
- Woodland Trust — Red campion (Silene dioica)
- Plantlife — White Campion