Cuckooflower - Cardamine pratensis

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Cuckooflower - Cardamine pratensis
© Dr Chris Gibson/English Nature

This is a delicate spring flower with many local names, including lady's smock and milkmaids. It has clusters of pale lilac four-petalled flowers. It is a spreading plant with upright stems. The leaves are dark green and deeply lobed becoming narrower towards the top. The seed pods are long, narrow and bright green in colour, when ripe they split open distributing the seeds away from the parent plant.

Cuckooflower grows in damp, seasonally waterlogged meadows, marshes, and alongside stream and river banks. It is an ideal perennial plant for moist lawns, natural meadows, bog gardens and water margins. It grows well with other meadow plants, such as ragged-robin, marsh marigold, snake's head fritillary, cowslip and bugle. It is one of the main food plants for the orange tip butterfly.

Animals

Butterflies, Green-veined white, Orange-tip

Foliage	Green
Flower	Pink, April to June
Moisture	(Average)
Sunlight	(Full sun to Part-shade)
Origin	Native