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Rose Campion

Lychnis coronaria A PLANT may be common and yet have an uncommon appearance, as may be seen in the example before us. The rose campion, which is now classed as a lychnis, but may with propriety be catalogued under its other name, Agrostemma coronaria, is as common as any good garden plant known. But it is peculiarly distinct, and may be recognised at any reasonable distance by its hoary leafage, its forked style of growth, the arrangement of the leaves in pairs, and the splendour of it solitary flowers. The rich purplish-crimson of these can never be imitated by the art of man, and when we see the best possible picture of them we must ask with Thomson, "Who can paint like nature?" and take the negative reply he gives. We may see in stained glass, when the sun shines through and floods the pane with fiery hues, a near approach to the transparent and delicate but intense richness of this flower. But there is little need for a perfect imitation when the reality is at the command of all, for in the spring season the huckster florists sell rose campions at a penny each; they will grow almost anywhere, and whoever would despise them for their cheapness would deserve to see no more flowers in this world, whatever he might see in the other.

A small story may be worth telling, and here is a very small one of which this plant is the subject. A few years ago we visited a millionaire in a famous centre of manufacturing industry. The gardens were reputed to contain four acres of glass, devoted for the most part to grapes, pines, and peaches. The residence was a castle of high renown for political influence and princely hospitality. In making the tour of the gardens, and passing from begonias to bananas, and from orange groves to houses filled with orchids, we were invited by the head man to turn aside to see something "special." This proved to be a clump of the common rose campion that had located itself near the foot of a tree and had made a tremendous growth, and was then covered with delicious flowers--a penny plant prized by the millionaire and almost worshipped by this gardeners!

There are three forms of this plant in cultivation, comprising the single red (here figured), the single white, and the double red. John Gerarde figures the two single kinds in his usual truthful manner, and he records that in 1597 they were growing "plentifully in most gardens." He speaks of the soft leaves as being "fit to make candle weeks," and refers to the brightness of the flowers as suggesting the names by which it appears they were then known, as in English, the "gardener's delight, or gardner's eie; in Dutch, Christes eie; in French, oeillets, and oeillets Dieu." It was also known as the rose of Mary and the rose of Heaven. In respect of its properties, it was classed by the herbalists with the thousand and odd plants that were considered of sovereign use against the bites of scorpions, a feature of our English writers on plants that betrays at once their indebtedness to the herbalists of Southern Europe, and their want of discretion in copying for readers utterly ignorant of scorpions, except as revealed in museums and books.

With a woolly plant before us, we may ask, "What is the use of vegetable wool?" In the arts it is comparatively valueless, but as a part of a living plant it is of considerable importance, and, a priori, it is fair to assume that the plant could not well do without it. The "wool", of which the common mullein affords a familiar example, consists of closely-packed jointed hairs, which are a veritable extension of the cellular tissue, and exercise a powerful influence in the life-economy of the plant. When the earth is parched and the root finds no moisture, these hairs promote a copious condensation of the night dew, which trickles down to the blade of the leaf, and thus they serve as food-collectors, as do the tentacles of an anemone or the cilia of an animalcule. But when the dry heat of the day returns, they serve to protect the sensitive leaf-surface from which they spring; and, in fact, the "wool" is to the plant a protector at all seasons against extreme conditions. We meet with hairy and woolly plants in all kinds of situations; but they appear to be in a special manner adapted to the mountains and the deserts, where keen frost, copious dews, and great heat and drought are characteristics of the average conditions of plant-life. The plants that sting are rendered offensive by the poison glands that accompany the hairs with which their leaves are beset; these are brittle, and at a touch they part from their attachment and burst and diffuse their acrid secretions. The most terrible of all stinging plants is the devil's leaf (Urtica urentissima), which sometimes causes death by tetanus.

Amongst the plants nearest allied to the rose campion we must name the corn cockle (Agrostemma githago), a fine thing as a wilding, and occasionally seen in gardens. Better, however, than this are the scarlet lychnis of China (L. grandiflora); the shaggy lychnis (L. Haageana), the petals of which are curiously horned; Siebold's lychnis (L. Sieboldi), with terminal heads of beautiful white flowers; and the German catchfly (L. viscaria). These are worth a place in the very choicest selection of hardy plants.