Lobelia cardinalis

Cardinal Flower

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Family: Campanulaceae (Bellflower family)

Mid-Atlantic bloom time: July - October

Cardinal Flower is usually found in wetlands, damp areas or along streams. Its intensely red irregular tubular flowers each have two lips; the upper lip splits into two lobes and the lower lip is deeply cleft into three lobes. Very infrequently, a pink or rare white flowering specimen might be found. Hummingbirds drink its nectar and serve as an important pollinator.

Cardinal Flowergets its species name cardinalis and its common name Cardinal, not from the bird, but from the color of a Roman Catholic cardinal's miter and robes.

The flowers in the inflorescence bloom progressively from the bottom up. Each flower has 3 red lower petals and 2 upper red petals. It also has a red stalk tipped with the reproductive organs. Newly opened flowers first exert the stamens ("male" parts) with fine hair-like anthers; they also have more nectar in this early stage. Later in each flower's development, the anthers die back and the female stigma emerges, but the flowers have less nectar.

Hummingbirds come in to feed from the flowers at the top of the inflorescence first, because those flowers have more nectar. As they feed from deep into the flower's tube, the top of their heads brushes against the white anthers at the top of the young flower, collecting pollen. After feasting on the nectar-rich younger flowers, hummingbirds then feed on the older flowers, unwittingly transferring the pollen on their heads to the then-emerged stigma.

4 August 2014 Caledonia State Park, Fayetteville, PA	10 August 2014 Eleanor C. Lawrence Park, Centreville, VA	4 August 2014 Caledonia State Park, Fayetteville, PA	10 August 2014 Eleanor C. Lawrence Park, Centreville, VA (flowers on top have anthers; flowers below have exerted stigma)
8 August 2021 Eleanor C. Lawrence Park, Centreville, VA (flowers with anthers)	8 August 2021 Eleanor C. Lawrence Park, Centreville, VA (flowers with anthers)	9 August 2021 Sugarland Run, Herndon, VA (aging anther)	9 August 2021 Sugarland Run, Herndon, VA (looking upward at anther)
6 August 2016 Huntley Meadows Park, Alexandria, VA (flowers with stigma exerted)	9 August 2021 Sugarland Run, Herndon, VA (exerted stigma and waning anther)	9 August 2021 Sugarland Run, Herndon, VA (stigma exerted)

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