Lady smock (Cardamine pratensis)
Description
Cardamine pratensis (cuckooflower or lady's smock), is a flowering plant in the family Brassicaceae, native throughout most of Europe and Western Asia. The specific name pratensis is Latin for "meadow."Cardamine pratensis is a herbaceous, hairless,perennial plant growing to 40-60 cm tall, with pinnate leaves 5-12 cm long with 3-15 leaflets, each leaflet about 1 cm long. The flowers are produced on a spike 10-30 cm long, each flower 1-2 cm in diameter with four pale pink (rarely white) petals. The style of the fruit is short or longish.It grows best close to water.Its common name cuckooflower derives from the formation of the plant's flowers at around the same time as the arrival each spring of the first cuckoos in the British Isles
Taxonomic tree
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Domain: Eukarya
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Kingdom: Plantae
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Phylum: Magnoliophyta
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Class: Magnoliopsida
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Order: Brassicales
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Family: Brassicaceae
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Genus: Cardamine
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