Authors: L.  

Botanical Description

from a slender branching rootstock, with erect stems 30-90cm high. Basal leaves more or less rosetted, 2-10cm long, oblanceolate, wintergreen, those on the stems narrower. Flowers 3-4cm across, rose-red, each petal deeply four-lobed (two-lobed and white in L.f.-c. subsp. subintegra), in loose dichasial panicles, summer. Most of Europe but rare in the south, in damp to wet grassland and woods. Not really suitable for the rock garden in its normal phase, but L.f.-c. var. congesta (= var. pentlandii) is very compact with spreading to ascending flowering stems to 10cm long.