Royal Catchfly

It's July, the summer is really hittin' its stride now, huh? Winter is a long forgotten memory, or a future too impossible to ponder in the sweltering heat of summer. Spring wildflowers, whether they popped open in the deserts of the southwest, or carpeted woodland floors, are last year's fashions. It's time to turn our attention to those places where summer-flowering plants are strutting their stuff, filling fields and roadsides and prairies with new waves of flowers, sun-loving I-can-take-the-heat-of-summer flowers.

To me, the thought of the season brings to mind prairie species as easily as December 25th brings to mind the hedonistic destruction of beautifully wrapped gifts. Tall sunflowers sway in the breezes of my imagination. Bergamot fills my noggin with ghostly whiffs of its aroma. Purple Coneflower and milkweed species buckle under the crush of nectaring butterflies as I remember them. And Royal Catchfly makes me put on sunglasses, or avert my vision, unworthy of such a gorgeous wildflower, or am I embarrassed by its blatant naked beauty?

Royal Catchfly (Silene regia) is a member of the Pink Family (Caryophyllaceae), and its flowers are as bright red as the blood drying in the corners of Dracula's mouth. If it looks vaguely, sinfully familiar, that's because it has several spring-blooming cousins, such as Indian Pink (S. virginica) and California Indian Pink (S. californica) (see my article Scarlet Stars in a Green Cosmos, published July 9, 2002), which also have bloody, beautifully red blossoms. In fact, Royal Catchfly's scarlet flowers makes it the queen of the prom.

In tallgrass prairies, where flowers the color of the sun are the flavor of the day, Royal Catchfly not only stands out, it is also unusual. Red is not your typical color among prairie species.

Most pollinating insects can't see red any better than I can see at night when I'm driving, which is very unsettling on an unfamiliar road with traffic bearing down on me and ... oops ... so most insects wouldn't be drawn to Royal Catchfly. But some butterflies can see red (this would be the Royal Catchfly-22, nyuk, nyuk, nyuk), so they are attracted to the bright scarlet flowers. Also, the 1" long tube that the petals sit atop requires any thirsty insect to have a provocatively long proboscis in order to get at the sweet nectar inside. Again, butterflies fill the bill. And of course hummingbirds, with their obsession for the color red, are no stranger to the local tavern we call Royal Catchfly.

Go To Page: 1 2

Articles in this Topic    Discussions in this Topic