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agrostemma githago
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CORN COCKLE
Agrostemma Githago
Family CARYOPHYLLACEAE
Wandering through or round our cornfields any time during summer, one is almost sure to find this beautiful flower.
It is an annual, tall and erect, the stems clothed with white hairs, and attaining a height of four or five feet.
The leaves are long and narrow, four or five inches long, and not unlike the leaves of the corn-plants surrounding them.
The flowers are solitary, of a rich purple within, much paler without, and measure nearly two inches across. The woolly calyx is in one, strongly ribbed, with five very lon g leaf-like teeth, that considerably exceed the petais in length.
The flowers produce nectar, but owing to the length of the tube it is only accessible to the long tongues of butterflies and moths, who are instrumen tal in effecting its cross-fertilization.
This is the only native species.
The flowering period is from June to September.
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They are succeeded by four-angled githago agrostemma seed-pods an inch long, with a sword-shaped tip to the upper of the two joints. There are no valves, and only the upper joint perfects its single seed agrostemma githago. The flowering period is from June to September. Though found along all the sandy shores of Britain the Sea Kale is really rather a rare plant. Occasionally it may be githago agrostemma found away from sand or shingle, as at Beachy Head in Sussex, where it has climbed the great chalk cliffs and establisned itself.
Occasionally the flowers may be found with undivided petais, and rarely the flowers are white. The flowers produce nectar, and the stamens come to maturity before githago agrostemma the stigmas, thus favouring cross-fertilization. The flowering period is from May to August. Beyond being wellestablished in Suffolk and the Southern Counties, it is not one of native plants githago agrostemma, but an immigrant from the Continent. It is found about the lightened soil of our cornfields, especially those upon a chalky sub soil.
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