Ragged Robin

 

Ragged Robin (Silene flos-cuculi). Swindon, 15 May 2025.

Ragged-Robin (Silene flos-cuculi), a plant of wet meadows. (In this case, the meadow on Shaw Ridge in West Swindon.)

Why are the petals of this successful and widespread plant ragged? We don't know.

Why are the petals of all our other common plants not ragged? We don't know. 

The only vague idea I can think of is that flowers are aimed at an audience (e.g. of pollinators) and this tends to cement any kind of species distinctness; in rather the same way that the songs of different bird species are distinct.

Influenced by modern conventions for vernacular naming of plants, some botanists spell it Ragged-Robin. That would make sense if there were lots of different kinds: the *Gibraltar Ragged-Robin, for instance. But there aren't; there are 900 species in Silene, but only one of them is Ragged Robin.

Some people then go the next step and remember that the second part of a hyphenated plant-name is usually not capitalized, so they write it as Ragged-robin.  (Even though "Robin" is obviously meant to be a proper name!)

It is still often called Lychnis flos-cuculi. But it seems that the genus Lychnis (familiar from all my old flower books) has now disappeared, amalgamated into Silene. It included Ragged Robin, Sticky Catchfly, Alpine Catchfly and a few others. Lychnis species had 5 styles/5 capsule teeth, whereas Silene species had 3/6 or 5/10.

The Swedish name Gökblomster means Cuckoo Flower, and it has similar names throughout Europe (kuckucks-lichtnelke, fleur de coucou, flor de cuclillo...); hence Linnaeus gave it the specific name flos-cuculi. But in Britain the vernacular name Cuckoo Flower is applied to a different plant, Cardamine pratensis (which flowers several weeks earlier and, as it seems to me, more in sync with hearing the first cuckoo).

Ragged Robin (Silene flos-cuculi). Swindon, 15 May 2025.

Ragged Robin (Silene flos-cuculi). Swindon, 15 May 2025.

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Ragged Robin is common but for most of us it's a little off our home patch; a sight we come across during a ramble or a weekend away. Not special enough to seek out specifically, but each year with a slight pang of surprise. 

My life would be better if I spent more time in the world of Ragged Robin. I think this for a few seconds, and then I forget about it. Or rather, I put this year's encounter to bed with all the past encounters that I can no longer exactly locate;  renewing but not enhancing the significance that I believe I already felt, aged 7, the first time my grandmother pointed them out.

The showy time of Ragged Robin is rather brief; look at this same plant a month later.

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Ragged Robin (Silene flos-cuculi). Swindon, 13 June 2025.

Five capsule teeth!

Ragged Robin (Silene flos-cuculi). Swindon, 13 June 2025.