Stats

Lifespan: Perennial
Size: Medium
Diet: Photosynthetic
Biome: Temperate woodland
Range: Europe
Movement: Sessile
Breeding: Seeds
Defense: Toxins
Status: Common

About

Red campion is a dioecious flowering plant — each plant is either entirely male or entirely female — that produces vivid magenta-pink five-petalled blooms from late spring through summer. Its deep, tubular flowers are shaped to admit only long-tongued bumblebees and butterflies, making it a specialist pollinator plant of woodland edges and hedgerows.

Life cycle

1.
seed
A dormant seed waits for water and warmth before germinating.
2.
sprout
A first shoot emerges with cotyledon leaves and a tap root reaching down.
3.
sapling
A young plant grows true leaves and a stem or trunk, putting on height each season.
4.
mature
Fully grown, flowering or fruiting at adult size.

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Taxonomy

Kingdom: Plantae
Phylum: Tracheophyta
Class: Magnoliopsida
Order: Caryophyllales
Family: Caryophyllaceae
Genus: Silene
Species: Silene dioica