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Cuckoo Flower

Cuckoo Flower

Cardamine pratensis

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How common: Common

Cuckoo Flower is a delicate wildflower of damp meadows, stream edges, and ditches across the northern hemisphere. It has pale, often pink-tinged flowers and appears where the ground stays moist, sometimes even in shallow water. It typically blooms in late spring to early summer.

Did you know?

  • Its English name comes from blooming around the time cuckoos start calling.
  • Sometimes tiny plantlets can grow on its leaves, helping it spread.

About the species

Identification

Perennial 10–60 cm tall with upright, smooth stems. Lower leaves are divided into a few rounded pieces; upper stem leaves into narrow, strap-like pieces. Flower clusters sit at the stem tip. Each flower has four petals, white to pale pink or lilac, often with dark veins, with small yellow tips inside (pollen). Slender pods 1–3 cm long follow and split suddenly when ripe. Can be confused with stream bittercress: that one has pure white flowers and purple pollen tips, and its lower and upper leaves look alike, unlike Cuckoo Flower’s broader lower ones. Flowers in Finland in June–July.

Plant group

Herbaceous plants

Habitat

meadow, shore, mire, water

Flowering

Jun–Jul

About the habitat

Grows in wet meadows, river and lake shores, marshy edges, and ditches; tolerates very wet ground and can even stand in shallow water. Common almost throughout the country; rarer in eastern and northern Lapland.

Sources

Photo: Ermell, CC BY-SA 4.0 https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Wiesenschaumkraut (Cardamine pratensis)-20200416-RM-095356.jpg

Text: Pinkka: Laaja maatalouslajintuntemus 4 op - Koppisiemeniset, CC BY 4.0 https://laji.fi/taxon/MX.38403

Text: Pinkka: Metsälajintuntemus - Koppisiemeniset, 2-sirkkaiset, Brassicaceae - Primulaceae, CC BY 4.0 https://laji.fi/taxon/MX.38403

Text: Wikipedia (Finnish), CC BY-SA 4.0 https://fi.wikipedia.org/wiki/Luhtalitukka

See also