Nature Happenings #7

Soapy saponins!

Hello, Emma here once more with this week’s Nature Happenings! Amongst the beauty of the bluebells, stitchwort, wild garlic flowers and wood anemones, another favourite flower has been blooming lately in the woods, verges and hedgerows: red campion.

Red campion

Red campion (Silene dioica) is suddenly everywhere at the moment. Its large bright flowers sitting at the top of tall, downy stems announce its presence as one of the first pink flowers to bloom in spring making it easy to spot among the mainly whites and yellows of the other wild flowers that have appeared before it. Red campion is an important plant for pollinators, especially bees and hover-flies (we have grown some in our garden this year to encourage more critters). It’s also apparently an ancient woodland indicator species, although we’ve never seen it actually in the woods, more on the edges of woodlands and perhaps on rides and glades. Interestingly, it makes a good soap substitute, the plant contains saponins, so when you rub it between wet hands, a foamy substance will appear which breaks down dirt (I did this whilst on an ethnobotany course a few years back - it works really well!). The roots contain the highest concentration of saponins and can be boiled and the liquid used to clean laundry. It is mildly toxic however, so don’t ingest it and wash your hands afterwards.

Later, as the flowers go to seed, they form seed capsules, similar to those of poppies, which look like tiny pots. The ‘pot’ has an open top, thus allowing the plant to spill tiny seeds everywhere as the wind blows them from side to side, spreading them far and wide.

Red campion will be flowering from now until as late as November, so do look out for it and remember to revisit and check out the seed capsules later on (and maybe even collect a few to grow in your garden or in a pot for next spring!)