campion, in botany, including also the Bachelor's-button, Catch-fly, &c.: A genus of the pentagynia order, belonging to the pentandria clas of plants; and in the natural method ranking under the 22d order, Caryophyllae. The calyx is monophyllous, oblong, and smooth; there are five unguiculated petals; with the segments of the limb almost bifid; the capsule quinquelocular.

Species, &c. 1. The Chalcedonica, or Chalcedonian scarlet lychnis, hath a fibrated perennial root; upright, straight, hairy, annual stalks, rising three or four feet high; garnished with long, spear-pointed, close-fitting leaves, by pairs opposite; and the stalk crowned by a large, compact, flat bunch of beautiful scarlet or flame-coloured flowers, appearing in June and July. Of this there are varieties, with single scarlet flowers, with large double scarlet flowers of exceeding beauty and elegance, with pale-red flowers, and with white flowers. Of these varieties, the double scarlet lychnis is superior to all for size and elegance: the flowers being large, very double, and collected into a very large bunch, exhibit a charming appearance; the single scarlet kind is also very pretty; and the others effect an agreeable variety with the scarlet kinds. 2. The diœcia, or dioecious lychnis, commonly called bachelor's-button, hath fibrated perennial roots; upright stalks, branching very diffuse and irregular, two or three feet high; having oval, acute-pointed, rough leaves, by pairs opposite; and all the branches terminated by clusters of dioecious flowers of different colours and properties in the varieties; flowering in April and May. The varieties, are the common single red-flowered bachelors button, double red, double white, and single white-flowered. The double varieties are exceedingly ornamental in their bloom; the flowers large, very double, and continue long in blow; the single red sort grows wild by ditch sides and other moist places in many parts of England; from which the doubles were accidentally obtained by culture in gardens. The flowers are often dioecious, i.e., male and female on distinct plants. 3. The vicaria, or viscous German lychnis, commonly called catch-fly, hath fibrous perennial roots; crowned by a tuft of long grassy leaves close to the ground; many erect, straight, single stalks, rising a foot and a half or two feet high, exuding from their upper part a viscid or clammy matter; garnished with long narrow leaves, by pairs opposite; and terminated by many reddish purple flowers, in clusters one above another, forming a sort of long loose spike; all the flowers with entire petals; flowering in May. Of this also there are varieties with single red flowers, with double red flowers, and with white flowers. The double variety is considerably the most eligible for general culture, and is propagated in plenty by parting the roots. All the varieties of this species emitting a glutinous liquid matter from their stalks, flies happening to light thereon sometimes stick and entangle themselves, whence the plant obtains the name Catch-fly. 4. The flos-cuculi, cuckoo-flower lychnis, commonly called ragged-robin, hath fibrous perennial roots; upright, branchless, channelled stalks, rising near two feet high; garnished with long, narrow, spear-shaped leaves, in pairs opposite; and terminated by branchy foot-stalks, sustaining many purple, deeply quadridifl flowers; appearing in May. The flowers having each petal deeply quadridif in a torn or ragged-like manner, the plant obtained the cant name of Ragged-robin. There are varieties with single flowers and double flowers. The double sort is a large, very multiple, fair flower: it is an improved variety of the single, which grows wild in most of our moist meadows, and is rarely cultivated; but the double, being very ornamental, merits culture in every garden. All the four species and respective varieties are very hardy; all fibrous-rooted, the roots perennial; but are annual in stalks, which rise in spring, flower in summer, succeeded in the singles by plenty of seed in autumn, by which all the single varieties may be raised in abundance, but the doubles only by dividing the roots, and some by cuttings of the flower-stalks.