‘Corn Cockle: Corn Rose: Corn or Red Cam-
pion: Crown-of-the-Field


(Agrostemma Githago) Pink familv
(Lychnis Githago of Gray)


Flowers—Magenta or bright purplish crimson, 1 to 3 in. broad,
solitary at end of long, stout footstem; 5 lobes of calyx
leaf-like, very long and narrow, exceeding petals. Corolla of
5 broad, rounded petals; 10 stamens; 5 styles alternating with
calyx lobes, opposite petals. Stem: 1 to 3 ft. high, erect, with
few or no branches, leafy, the plant covered with fine white


go


Magenta to Pink


hairs. Leaves: Opposite, seated on stem, long, narrow,
pointed, erect. Fruit: a 1-celled, many-seeded capsuie.
Preferred Habitat—W heat and other grain fields; dry, waste places.
Flowering Season—July—September.
Distribution—United States at large; most common in Central
and Western States. Also in Europe and Asia.
‘*Allons! allons! sow’d cockle, reap’d no corn,’”’ exclaims
Biron in ‘‘Love’s Labor Lost.” Evidently the farmers even in
Shakespeare’s day counted this brilliant blossom the pest it has
become in many of our own grain fields just as it was in ancient
times, when Job, after solemnly protesting his righteousness,
called on his own land to bear record against him if his words
were false. ‘‘Let thistles grow instead of wheat, and cockle
instead of barley,” he cried, according to James the First’s trans-
lators ; but the ‘‘noisome weeds” of the original text seem to
indicate that these good men were more anxious to give the
English people an adequate conception of Job’s willingness to
suffer for his honor’s sake than to translate literally. Possibly
the cockle grew in Southern Asia in Job’s time : to-day its range
is north.
