Fire pinks flower in late spring and early summer. To prevent self-pollination, the anthers mature and for the first couple of days, the flower is male. After the pollen is shed, the anthers drop and the flower is a neuter for a day. During this neuter day, the pistil lengthens and the stigma becomes receptive. The flower is female for a day or two.

The flowers must be cross-pollinated and preferably out-crossed, receiving pollen from the flowers on another plant. Fire pinks are dependent upon ruby-throated hummingbirds to transfer the pollen.

To attract hummers, a flower needs a brilliant color. To keep the tiny birds returning, the flower must offer a reward of nectar. This high energy source attracts flies, gnats, ants, and other small insects, but insects cannot pollinate the flowers. They only rob the flowers of the nectar.

The fire pink has a solution to this robbery. The thin stems and spathulate (spoon-shaped) leaves are covered with glandular trichomes. These viscid hairs entrap small insects unfortunate enough to land on or climb the plant. This natural flypaper gave rise to the name catchfly.

(Compiled from: An Illustrated Flora of the Northern United States and Canada, Nathaniel Lord Britton and Hon. Addison Brown, Dover Publications, Inc. NY, 1970; Gray's Manual of Botany, Merritt Lyndon Fernald, Dioscorides Press, reprinted 1989; and "The Role of Breeding System and Inbreeding Depression in the Maintenance of an Outcrossing Mating Strategy in Silene virginica", Michele R. Dudash and Charles B Fenster, American Journal of Botany, 2001)