Lychnis
Hardy Perennial.
From three inches to two feet.
Flowers white or of various shades of pink and
red, April to July.
The Lychnis or Campion
tribe is a large one, and its members differ a
great deal among themselves in habit of growth,
in size and in appearance.
One division is dwarf, and requires surroundings
which approach the conditions of a rockery; another
has the character and the rose and white colours
of the wild Campions of the hedges and sea-banks;
another, with stiff stems and thick leaves, has
flowers of the most intense (not to say crude)
vermillion.
The dwarf lychnises may be represented by Lychnis alpine,
three inches high, forming tufts of rosy flowers;
and Lychnis Lagascae, four inches, bright rose.
These should have well-drained situations in soil
that is gritty and has some stones bedded in it.
The bladder-campion race is adapted for herbaceous
borders, in any good and fairly drained garden
soil.
The best sorts are vespertina (double), a beautiful
white;
viscaria alba grandiflora, white;
viscari splendens, bright rose-pink, double;
flos cuculi (double ) or double Ragged Robin.
Agrostemma coronaria is sometimes recommended
among Campions.
The third class consist of Lychnis Chalcedonica –
a stiff, upright grower, two feet to a yard high,
with geranium-shaped trusses of a somewhat raw
scarlet, which is a striking colour in itself,
but disagrees with almost every other tint –
and the hybrids called Haageanæ, whose flowers
are white and of several shades of red.
Both the latter sections may be raised from seed
in the manner of hardy perennials, sowing in boxes
of light compost between May and August, if there
is any doubt as to the hospitableness of the open
soil.
The full-grown plants should stand in good clumps
in the herbaceous border; they must be cleared
of dead stems, etc., in November, top-dresses
with the rest of the beds, and broken up and replanted
in the fourth or fifth year.
See Also : Rose
of Heaven and Campion
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