Herbaceous perennials, found from open woods, mountains, producing a range of colourful, showy flowers, over simple foliage. L. coronaria and forms, does very well in our Gravel Garden, but it will happily grow in a mixed border.
Very attractive to visiting insects, especially bees, flies and butterflies, aside from those doubled forms with fewer of the pollen and/or nectar resources needed by the visitors. The seeds especially are an important food source for the larvae of a number of moths, including the aptly named lychnis moth.
Lychnis have now been reclassified into the genera Silene and Viscaria.