Lychnis Viscaria L. (Viscaria Vulgaris Bernh.)

Abstract

Subgenus Viscaria. A tufted winter-green perennial herb. Roots of two types, white, dense fibrous below stock and longer, thick, white adventitious. Stock, woody and supporting short, erect branches, ending in mostly very short densely leafy nonflowering shoots but sometimes longer up to 50 mm, with leaves crowded on top of first node. The flowering stem is 15-60 cm, erect, hollow, dark green, becoming purple and viscid under the nodes, glabrous or slightly hairy above. Cauline leaves 50-130mm x 4-10mm, oblong to linear-lanceolate to linear-spathulate, acuminate, entire, with woolly margins at the base, otherwise glabrous, narrowing below into a long stalk-like base which widens to join the stem, becoming purple. The inflorescence is an interrupted spike-like panicle of axillary, opposite dichasia with 3-6 flowers per cyme, becoming increasingly dense towards the apex. Bracts 3-35mm long, broadly lanceolate, acuminate, glabrous, decussate, clasping around the stem. Flowers 3-50, corolla 15-20mm, pedicels 3-5 mm. Calyx 615 mm, cylindrical-clavate, membranous, purplish, glabrous, 10 -ribbed with short ovate teeth. Five petals bright purple-red, pink, rarely white, entire or emarginate, with two conspicuous coronal scales 2-4 mm long at the base, claw narrow. Styles 5. Stigmas 5, feathery. Fruit 8-11 mm long, capsule ovoid, bursting the calyx, 5-8 celled, opening by 5(-8) recurved teeth, borne on a gynophore at least half as long as the ripe capsule. Seeds 0.4-0.7mm, reniform, black, with acute tubercles, borne on cells in radially and concentrically orientated rows. Seed weight 0.074 + 0.0029 mg.