Cuckoo Flower Cardamine Pratensis
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Cuckoo flower cardamine pratensis. Checklists containing cuckoo flower. The flowers are usually veined with darker violet but in some areas pure white forms can be found. The meadow froghopper philaenus spumarius is attracted to the sap of these plants and its larvae form frothy blobs on the stems. Look out for its delicate pale pink flowers in damp meadows and ditches and on riverbanks.
Pratensis is near threatened. Cardamine pratensis is the official county flower of the old county of brecknockshire currently within powys and of the county of cheshire. Wet meadows lawns pond shores. Cuckooflower cardamine pratensis often known as lady s smock the pretty lilac flowers open around the time the cuckoo starts to call.
Pratensis is a perennial to 40cm forming a basal rosette of pinnate leaves with rounded leaflets with erect leafy stems bearing short open racemes of 4 petalled pale pink or white flowers 1 5cm across in late spring. The blooms appear in late spring to early summer just at the time as the first cuckoo starts to call. The flowers are arrayed in a spiral around the inflorescence axis or branches or occur singly or in several ranks. Cardamine pratensis a sure sign that spring has arrived the cuckooflower blooms from april.
However both its round to kidney shaped basal leaves and upper stem leaves are simple not compound divided. It is an important food plant for the caterpillars of the orange tip and the green veined white butterfly. The most widespread of these is ssp. Cardamine pratensis the cuckoo flower lady s smock mayflower or milkmaids is a flowering plant in the family brassicaceae native throughout most of europe and western asia.
English nbn id code. Cardamine pratensis is one of the most beautiful and one of the best loved of our wild flowers. It bears long narrow leaves and supremely elegant flowers two or three to each stem in white or with pink tomes. Checklists containing cardamine pratensis subsp.
Paludosa which can be found in southern and central finland in waterside meadows which are prone to flooding and also in many other kinds of damp places. Dracamine pratensis l nieuwl. Some people call this cuckoo spit. Cuckoo flower is a perennial species and no fewer than three sub species can be found growing in finland.