Red Campion

Name: Red Campion

Scientific name: Silene dioica

Category: Flowers

Nature Stars: 40

What are nature stars?

About: These bright pink flowers brighten up roadsides, woodlands and hedges throughout the summer. Just as bluebells finish flowering in woodlands, red campion starts to come into bloom. When they grow side-by-side for a few weeks they can turn a woodland floor into an amazing sea of pink and blue.

How to identify: Bright pink flower with five petals. Its leaves and stem are a bit hairy.

Where: Found throughout the UK and Ireland, very common in the mainland UK.

Fantastic fact: Moths, bees and butterflies all feed on red campion.

Photograph credit: Philip Precey