Lychnis chalcedonica

Burning Love ( Lychnis chalcedonica )

The Burning Love ( Lychnis chalcedonica ), also scarlet campion or called for their showy flowers form, Maltese Cross or Jerusalem Cross, is a plant that belongs to the carnation family ( Caryophyllaceae ).

Description

The Burning Love grows as a perennial herbaceous plant that reaches the plant height of 50 to 100 centimeters. It forms as outlasting short rhizomes, from which occasionally short flowerless side shoots are formed. There are stiff, multicellular hairs ( trichomes ) are present. The upright, stiff stems is rarely branched.

The leaves are distributed in basal rosettes and constantly against the stem. The leaf blade of basal leaves are oval to spatulate and lanceolate to ovate. The leaf blade of stem leaves ovate - lanceolate or ovate with heart shaped Spreitengrund at a length of 5 to 12 inches and a width of 2 to 5 centimeters. Both leaf surfaces are sparsely soft-hairy.

The main flowering period extends into Central Europe from June to July; in China, it is in summer to autumn. The terminal, designed as a very dense, umbrella- shaped inflorescence dichasium usually contains 10 to 30, a maximum of 50 flowers. The herbaceous, small bracts are lanceolate. The slender pedicels are much shorter than the calyx. The hermaphrodite flowers have a diameter of 1.5 to 2 centimeters, they are radial symmetry and fünfzählig double perianth. The five sepals are fused into a calyx tube with a length of usually 1.2 to 1.5 ( to 1.7 ) and a diameter of about 3 millimeters, which has ten soft hairy nerves. The five cup teeth are triangular- lanceolate with a length of about 3 millimeters. The five striking orange -red to bright red petals are fused. The deeply carved crown has a diameter of 1 to 2 centimeters. The five Kronlappen are broadly obovate with a length of 7 to 9 mm and cut two pieces to one-third; this corolla lobes are obovate with a pfriemlichen lateral tooth. The corona consists of two rows of five lineal corners, with a length of 3 mm and a tight top. The ten stamens protrude slightly out of the corolla. In the ovary, five pen.

The egg-shaped with a length of 8 to 10 mm fruit capsules open with five flaps. In China, the fruits ripen in autumn. The dark red - brown seeds are triangular - reniform and sharp - pointed, warty at a size of about 1 mm.

The chromosome number is 2n = 24, 48

Dissemination and use

The natural occurrence of the Burning Love extending from Russia to southern Siberia to Mongolia and northern China. There it occurs on moist forest meadows, margins of bushes and in ravines.

The Burning Love came as an ornamental plant around the middle of the 16th century from the Turkish gardens to Central Europe, which is also old name of the flower as Flos Constantinopolitanus, Lychnis Bycantina or Chalcedonia ( from the city of Chalcedon, to the east by the then Constantinople Opel ) is explained. First in central Europe it is likely Konrad Gessner have cultivated about 1560 in Zurich, which is not known from where the flowers were originally derived. In Camerarius the plant is called as Lychnis Constantinopolitanus vel Cretica, which refers to the standing time under the influence of Venice island of Crete. You might have come like many other oriental garden plants by the Venetian Levantine trade to Central Europe.

In the 18th century discovered German naturalist, Johann Georg Gmelin about 1739 or 1772, Peter Simon Pallas game reserves in South and Central Russia. Pallas reported that the inflorescences of the plant of Tatars is used as soap, a former Russian folk name ( Bojarskaja Spes = " woman's jewelry " ) refers to the use as an ornamental plant. You should have arrived from southern Russia to the Turkish gardeners. A first illustration of the kind one finds in 1583 the Flemish botanist Rembert Dodoens, 1588 it has been cultivated in the garden of physician and botanist Camerarius in Nuremberg, which it also differs in color abbildete in the so-called Camerarius - Florilegium. In 1601 it was described and illustrated by the Dutch botanist Charles de l' Ecluse ( Carolus Clusius ).

From the 17th century different color forms were cultured, as was reported in 1613 from plants with white and red and white flowers, a little later filled with scarlet flowers. This form was developed by Goethe ( "the most beautiful thing you can see as a garden ornament " ) greatly appreciated. From the end of the 19th century was the previously very popular plant as old-fashioned and has been used much less frequently.

A naturalization of Lychnis chalcedonica in Central Europe is not known ( Stinsenpflanze ).

System

This species was described in 1753 under the name of Lychnis chalcedonica by Carl Linnaeus in Species Plantarum, 1, p 436. Synonyms for Lychnis chalcedonica L. are: Silene chalcedonica (L.) EHLKrause. The scientific botanical sources arrange them differently. Either in the genus catchflies ( Lychnis ) or the previous Lychnis species belong to the genus Silene ( Silene ).

Swell

• Lu Dequan, Magnus Lidén, Bengt Oxelman: Lychnis L.: Lychnis chalcedonica LS 101 Add: Wu Zhengyi, Peter H. Raven, Deyuan Hong (eds.): Flora of China. Volume 6: Caryophyllaceae through Lardizabalaceae. Science Press and Missouri Botanical Garden Press, Beijing and Saint Louis 2001, ISBN 1-930723-05-9.
• John K. Morton: Silene L.: Silene chalcedonica (L.) EHLKrause. In: Flora of North America Editorial Committee ( eds.): Flora of North America North of Mexico. Volume 5: Magnoliophyta: Caryophyllidae, part 2 Oxford University Press, New York / Oxford, July 4 2005, ISBN 0-19-522211-3.
• Eckhart J. Hunter, Friedrich Ebel, Peter Hanelt, Gerd Müller, K. (ed.): Excursion Flora of Germany. Founded by Werner Roth painter. Volume 5: Herbaceous ornamental and useful plants, Springer, Spektrum Akademischer Verlag, Berlin / Heidelberg, 2008, ISBN 978-3-8274-0918-8.
• Timm Nawrocki 21 January, 2011: Silene chalcedonica (L.) EHLKrause - data sheet of the Alaska Natural Heritage Program of the University of Anchorage UAA - Full text PDF file. (English ) last viewed 13 November 2011
• Heinz -Dieter Krausch: Kaiserkron peonies and red .... From the discovery and introduction of our garden flowers. German Taschenbuch Verlag, Munich 2007, ISBN 978-3-423-34412-8, pp. 282-283.