Scarlet pimpernel is a tender annual, branched from the base, with square stems. The flowers arise singly at the tips of long stems that arise from leaf axils; the petals are united at their base to form a very short tube, thus the corolla is technically deeply 5-lobed; flowers are less than ½ inch wide; scarlet or brick red, rarely white or bluish. Blooms May–September. Leaves are opposite, stalkless, ovate, with dots underneath, with or without hairs, to ¾ inch long. The fruit is a tiny, round capsule that opens its “lid” to disperse seeds.
Height: to about 6 inches.
Occurs in central, east-central, and southern Missouri.
Habitat and Conservation
Found in fields, pastures, waste places, rights-of-way, and other disturbed sites, usually in moist soils. This plant can develop roots at the stem nodes and spread to form a mat. A native of Eurasia, this plant has been spread all over the world where the climate is suitable.
Human Connections
This plant has a long history as a medicinal herb that goes back to the Greek scholars Pliny and Dioscorides. Over the centuries and in various countries, it has been used as a remedy for poor complexion, depression, rabies, weak vision, hard-to-remove splinters — and even witchcraft.
The name "pimpernel" is a form of the original Latin name for this plant. In the early 1900s, a novel, stage play, and, later, musicals, movies, and TV shows, set in France during the Reign of Terror, depicted a fictional masked hero called "The Scarlet Pimpernel." This was an early version of what has become the well-known trope of "hero with a secret identity." In The Scarlet Pimpernel, the mysterious, dashing hero is a mild-mannered Englishman who, as the masked hero, rescues French aristocrats from the guillotine. He signs his letters only with a drawing of this little red flower, so common in Europe.
Ecosystem Connections
The flowers close around 4 p.m., or whenever clouds shade the sun. When the sun comes out again, they reopen — hence the common name "weatherglass." This adaption probably helps the plant maximize the amount of pollination that can occur while lengthening the life of each flower.
