Plate VIII.
GYPSOPHILA REPENS. L.
The Creeping Gypsophila. Gypsophile rampante. Kriechendes Gipskraut.
The Moss Campion or Cushion Pink
(SILENE ACAULIS)
Wherever conditions are unfavourable to plant life, not only on high mountains but also in deserts and by the seashore, the plants that manage to survive frequently respond by a process of co-operation and form dense cushion-like masses. In the high Alps many examples of this are seen. The individual plants are closely huddled together in the form of a tuft, not only on account of warmth and natural protection and to prevent their being blown away by rough winds, but also because the cushion acts as a sort of reservoir or sponge and prevents the little plants being dried up by the fierce rays of the sun.
The Moss Campion is a typical “Cushion plant.” It is found abundantly all over the Alps, especially in the limestone regions between 5000 and 10,000 feet or even higher. It grows in open rocky places, often on the bare rock itself, and in the neighbourhood of glaciers, and may be found close up to the snowline. The bright green moss-like cushions formed of the dense clusters of leaves become sprinkled over with pinkish-purple star-like flowers in June, July, and August. Occasionally the flowers are white. The long conical root penetrates far into the soil or into some fissure in the rocks, thus securely anchoring the plant, and divides above into numerous branches, which radiate in all directions and are thickly covered below with brown dead leaves and terminate above in a rosette of bright green linear leaflets. The flowers, which are visited by many kinds of insects, are of three kinds. Rarely we find cushions of flowers containing both stamens and pistil in the same flower, but even here the pistil becomes ready to receive pollen before the stamens open so as to prevent self-fertilisation. Usually, however, the flowers are unisexual and contain stamens or pistil only, and staminate and pistillate flowers are borne on different cushions.
The Moss Campion is widely distributed in the mountain regions of Southern Europe, North America, and the Arctic regions. Silene exscapa closely resembles the above, but is much less common. Its flowers are smaller and less brightly coloured, and the separation between calyx and flower stalk is more gradual and less abrupt than in the Moss Campion. Its seed-vessel or capsule is, moreover, hardly longer than the remains of the calyx which encloses it, whereas the capsule of the Moss Campion projects well beyond the enclosing calyx leaves.