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Cardamine pratensis

Flowering Plants

Cardamine pratensis, commonly called the cuckoo flower, lady's smock, mayflower or milkmaids, is a flowering plant in the family Brassicaceae and order Brassicales, a perennial herb native to Eurasia. It is a hairless, herbaceous perennial growing to about 60 centimeters tall, with pinnate leaves 5 to 12 centimeters long made up of 3 to 15 leaflets each around 1 centimeter long, and flowers borne on a spike 10 to 30 centimeters long, each with four pale violet pink petals, occasionally white, and six stamens; its seed pods reach up to 5 centimeters in length. The species is widespread in Europe and commonly found throughout the British Isles, including every Irish vice-county, and grows best close to water, favoring moist ground. It has become naturalized in North America through cultivation, and serves as a food plant for the orange tip butterfly, Anthocharis cardamines. In folklore the plant carried fairy associations that made it considered unlucky indoors and excluded from May Day garlands. This description is adapted from Wikipedia contributors under CC BY-SA 4.0; changes were made. https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/

Facts
Classification
Diet
Photosynthetic Autotroph 1
System (Realm)
Terrestrial 2
Relationship to People
Used in Traditional Medicine 2
Comparison
NatureServe Rank
G5 Secure 3
CITES Appendix
Not Listed 4
Scientific Name
Cardamine pratensis 5
Conservation Status
Not Evaluated 6
Connections

Child Taxon Of

Brassicaceae, Taxa
Source Cardamine pratensis (Wikipedia)

In Biome

Grassland, Biomes
Source Plants For A Future: Cardamine pratensis
In the Other Atlases

Found In

Albania

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Austria

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Belarus

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Belgium

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Bulgaria

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Canada

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Denmark

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Ethiopia

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Finland

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France

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Germany

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Hungary

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Ireland

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Italy

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Japan

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Kazakhstan

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Manchuria

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Mongolia

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Morocco

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Netherlands

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North America

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Norway

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Poland

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Portugal

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Romania

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Spain

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Sweden

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Switzerland

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Ukraine

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Sources
1. Cardamine pratensis (Wikipedia)
  • Lead, sentence naming the group it belongs to
    Cardamine pratensis, the cuckoo flower, lady's smock, mayflower, or milkmaids, is a flowering plant in the family Brassicaceae.
  • Child Taxon Of: Brassicaceae, Introduction
    Cardamine pratensis, the cuckoo flower, lady's smock, mayflower, or milkmaids, is a flowering plant in the family Brassicaceae.
View the Source
2. Plants For A Future: Cardamine pratensis
Plants For A Future
  • Medicinal Uses
    They are used internally in the treatment of chronic skin complaints, asthma and hysteria.
  • Habitats
    Moist, slightly shady places in meadows and by streams ... usually in acid soils
View the Source
3. NatureServe Explorer: Cardamine pratensis
NatureServe ExplorerGlobal rank (roundedGRank)
Quote, Global rank (roundedGRank)
"roundedGRank": "G5"
View the Source
4. UNEP-WCMC Species+ database (CITES Secretariat): Species+: Plantae
UNEP-WCMC Species+ database (CITES Secretariat)Species+ taxon_concepts, id 45
Quote, Species+ taxon_concepts, id 45
"cites_listing":"I/II/III/NC","eu_listing":"A/B/C/D/NC","higher_taxa":{"kingdom":"Plantae","phylum":null,"class":null,"order":null,"family":null},"synonyms":[],"common_names":[{"name":"Plants","language":"EN"},{"name":"Flora","language":"EN"}],"cites_listings":[]
View the Source
5. Wikipedia: Cardamine pratensis
Wikipedia
6. GBIF (IUCN Red List category): GBIF IUCN Red List category for Cardamine pratensis
GBIF (IUCN Red List category)GBIF taxon key 7972010, category field
Quote, GBIF taxon key 7972010, category field
"category": "NOT_EVALUATED"
View the Source
IUCN Red List of Threatened Species
International Union for Conservation of NatureView the Source
Plant (Wikipedia)
Lead, whole group is photosynthetic
Quote, Lead, whole group is photosynthetic
They are predominantly photosynthetic or came from photosynthetic ancestors, meaning that they obtain their energy from sunlight by using the green pigment chlorophyll in their chloroplasts to produce sugars from carbon dioxide and water.
View the Source
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