Botanical name: Silene dioica
Folk names: Red riding hood, adder’s flower

Type: Perennial

Wildlife: Nectar and pollen for bumblebees including the long-tongued garden bumblebee and butterflies. Caterpillar food for several moths including the rivulet, twin-spot carpet, marbled clover, the campion and the lychnis moths. Caterpillars of the campion moth live inside the seed pod and eat the seeds of a female plant so be careful when collecting seeds! Caterpillars are an important and helpful food source for birds and hedgehogs if they can access your garden.

Flowers: May and June and intermittently up to November

Decorative merit: Rose-coloured flowers with a five-petalled shape, on downy stems 30-80cm high with opposite paired leaves. Male and female flowers on separate plants.

Where: Sun or part-shade. Middle or back of borders, mini meadows and wilder areas. Combines well with bluebells and cow parsley in a wilder patch.

Folklore: Flower of the fairy folk. Silenus, the drunken, merry god of the woodlands in Greek mythology, gave his name to Silene dioica.

Carnation family relative of ragged robin and white campion.

Donate seeds to Exeter Seed Bank