Botanical name: Lychnis flos-cuculi
Folk names: crowflower, drunkards, shaggy Jacks, thunder flower

Type: Perennial

Wildlife: Nectar for bees, and butterflies including the Orange-tip butterfly.

Flowers: May to July

Decorative merit: Numerous, daintily frayed five-petalled flowers 40mm across, not unlike the flowers of Red Campion on erect stems with sparse, rough, hairy leaves. Produces an abundance of tiny, dark seeds which rattle in small brown capsules until ripe then capsules open and they spread by wind.

Where: Part-shade or sun. Pond margins, bog gardens, moisture-retentive soil at the back of shady borders or on shrubbier edges. Mine have also grown well on my sunny allotment, growing tall alongside red and white campions.

Folklore: Flowers were used for garlands and crowns. Unmarried girls would pick and name buds after their admirers, and the bud named after the man to be married would open first. It was also believed storms would flower if the flowers were picked.

Donate seeds to Exeter Seed Bank