Centaurea cyanus
Bachelor's-button, barbeau, blaver, bleuet, blue-poppy, bluebonnets, bluebottle, brushes, casse lunette, corn pinks, cornflower, cornflower knapweed, garden cornflower, garden knapweed, hurtsickle, thimbles, witch's bells
usually 1, erect, ± openly branched distally, loosely tomentose.
± loosely gray-tomentose;
basal leaf blades linear-lanceolate, 3–10 cm, margins entire or with remote linear lobes, apices acute;
cauline linear, usually not much smaller except among heads, usually entire.
campanulate, 12–16 mm.
25–35;
corollas blue (white to purple), those of sterile florets raylike, enlarged, 20–25 mm, those of fertile florets 10–15 mm.
bodies green, ovate (outer) to oblong (inner), tomentose or becoming glabrous, margins and erect appendages white to dark brown or black, scarious, fringed with slender teeth ± 1 mm.
radiant, in open, rounded or ± flat-topped cymiform arrays, pedunculate.
stramineous or pale blue, 4–5 mm, finely hairy;
pappi of many unequal stiff bristles, 2–4 mm.
= 24 (Russia).
Centaurea cyanus
Centaurea cyanus is a commonly cultivated garden ornamental. Its cypselae are often included in wildflower seed mixes and it naturalizes readily in many areas.
(Discussion copyrighted by Flora of North America; reprinted with permission.)
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