CORNFLOWER OR BATCHELOR BUTTONS

Cornflower, batchelor button, Centaurea cyanus

If you live in Texas surely you've seen these pretty little blue flowers popping up everywhere. 

Also known as the bachelors button, in folklore, cornflowers were worn by young men in love; if the flower faded too quickly, it was taken as a sign that the man's love was not returned. 

The Latin name, Cyanus, was given the Cornflower after a youthful devotee of the goddess Flora (Cyanus), whose favourite flower it was, and the name of the genus is derived from the Centaur, Chiron, who taught mankind the healing virtue of herbs.

They say that you can make a distilled water from Cornflower petals which was formerly in repute as a remedy for weak eyes. The famous French eyewash, 'Eau de Casse Lunettes,' used to be made from them. 

Cornflower or bachelor's button, is an annual flowering plant in the family Asteraceae native to Europe. In the past, it often grew as a weed in cornfields (in the broad sense of "corn", referring to grains, such as wheat, barley, rye, or oats), hence its name. It is now endangered in its native habitat by agricultural intensification, particularly by over-use of herbicides. However, Centaurea cyanus is now also naturalised in many other parts of the world, including North America and parts of Australia through introduction as an ornamental plant in gardens and as a seed contaminant in crop seeds.. 

Centaurea cyanus

Billeder af nordens flora. v.1

København,G.E.C. Gad's forlag,1917-1927.

Lindman, CAM, Bilder ur Nordens Flora

Bilder Nordens Fl.

biodiversitylibrary.org/page/10459192

http://plantillustrations.org/species.php?id_taxon=0&genus=Centaurea&id_species=217941&species=&mobile=0&size=0&uhd=0&SID=04r42au0r0cbtpk5ajcd8d9o4v&lay_out=0&group=0&hd=0&query_type=genus&thumbnails_selectable=0&query_broad_or_restricted=broad

http://plantillustrations.org/illustration.php?id_illustration=131263&mobile=0

Left border, bachelor's button plant inhabited by dragonfly.
Artist, Jean Bourdichon, ca. 1518.

Book of Hours

France, Tours, ca. 1515

MS M.732 fol. 10v

Written and illuminated in Tours, France, probably 1518.

Decoration: 8 full-page miniatures, 96 text pages bordered with flowers, fruits, and various plants, each identified by name in Latin and French.

Artists: Jean Bourdichon and an anonymous mid-sixteenth-century Italian illuminator who painted the Madruzzo arms and emblems on fols. 2v, 3r, 61r, 61v.

Bourdichon's full page illustrations and botanical borders are very close to his work in the Hours of Anne de Bretagne (Paris, Bibliothéque)queen.

In left border, bachelor's button plant inhabited by dragonfly.
Plant identified in Latin by rubric IACEA NIGRA in upper margin and in French by label HUILLETZ DE PRE below plant.

Huilletz ~ Dianthus carnation

Huilletz blanc - Species tunici Dianthus caryophyllus 

In right border, knapweed plant inhabited by beetle.

Plant identified in Latin by rubric IACEA NIGRA in upper margin and in French by HANON below plant.

1796 CENTAUREA CYANUS 

artist Johannes Zorn (1739 - 1799) 

 Icones Plantarum Medicinalium, Nurnberg. 

 He produced these hand colored copper botanical engravings 

between 1790 and his death in 1799.  

A. Guillaumin, Les Fleurs de Jardins, tome I : Les Fleurs de Printemps,
 Paul Lechevalier, 1929

Blue for a Cottage Garden | Nigella damascena

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Gardening | Plant ID

nigella

Nigella is a genus of attractive hardy annual herbs of the Buttercup Family, with blue, yellow, or white flowers, and very finely cut foliage, which probably suggests the common name, Fennel-flower. It is also called Love-in-the-mist and will be forever linked to Gertrude Jekyll.

Alice Morse Earle wrote of this mysterious plant in Old Time Gardens:

"I join with Dr. Forbes Watson in finding the Nigella uncanny. It has a half-spidery look, that seems ungracious in a flower. Its names are curious: Love-in-a-mist, Love-in-a-puzzle, Love-in-a-tangle, Puzzle-love, Devil-in-a-bush, Katherine-flowers—another of the many allusions to St. Katherine and her wheel; and the persistent styles do resemble the spokes of a wheel. A name given it in a cottage garden in Wayland was Blue Spider-flower, which seems more suited than that of Spiderwort for the Tradescantia. Spiderwort, like all "three-cornered" flowers, is a flower of mystery; and so little cared for to-day that it is almost extinct in our gardens, save where it persists in out-of-the-way spots. A splendid clump of it is here shown, which grows still in the Worcester garden I so loved in my childhood. In this plant the old imagined tracings of spider's legs in the leaves can scarce be seen. With the fanciful notion of "like curing like" ever found in old medical recipes, Gerarde says, vaguely, the leaves are good for "the Bite of that Great Spider," a creature also of mystery."

Below are views of the fine leaves and unusual seed pods. 

 

The beautiful cover of Hortus Eystettensis

originally published in 3 volumes, 1620

Besler, Basilius. Hortus Eystettensis: 2. Sansepolcro: Aboca Museum Ed, 2

In the second volume of Hortensus Eystettensis is a botanical illustration of nigella which at the time was labeled as Melanthium. (See below).

Bessler, B., Hortus Eystettensis, vol. 2: t. 178 (1620)

Plants Illustrated

Nigella belongs to the Ranunculaceae Family (Buttercup or Crowfoot Family).

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Grassroots Horticulture

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Sew This into Your Garden | Pincushion Flower | Scabiosa

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Periwinkle blue pincushion flower, Scabiosa,  is a pollinator favorite in the garden. The lavender bloom of Scabiosa makes them especially attractive to early spring pollinators. A soft lavender blue, it attracts butterflies and bees and brings an old-fashion charm added to cottage gardens and rock gardens. The blooms look like pincushions surrounded by frilly petals. ome professionals believe it should not be used but I like it and use it in small quantities. Pincushion Flower is a member of the honeysuckle family, Caprifoliaceae family (formerly it was placed in the Teasel family, Dipsacaceae). Historically, the dried teasel flower head of Fuller's teasel, the pincushion flower's cousin, served a utilitarian function in textile processing. It was used as a natural comb for raising the nap on fabrics. How do I grow this successfully? Start with an alkaline soil, a high pH  8.5, so if yours tends to be acidic, add lime to raise the pH.

   

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©  Grassroots Horticulture

Bee Balm Monarda

Horsemint, Bee Balm, Oswego Tea, is an annual or perennial, coarse aromatic herbs, commonly known as Horsemint. They have square stems and opposite leaves characteristic of the Mint Family, and bear showy red or lavender flowers in clusters. 

Bee Balm, Peter's Purple 
Monarda 'Peter's Purple' Bee Balm

Bergamo Beebalm

Monarda Citriodora 'Bergamo'

Resources

Mt. Cuba Center, Wilmington, Delaware

©  Grassroots Horticulture

2000-2015

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The Distinctive Blues | Beautiful Blue Flowers

Variegated Greater Periwinkle
Vinca Major
From the Dogbane Family

Skyflower

Duranta Erecta
From the Verbena Family

Pansy

Vitex

Vitex agnus-castus

Round Leaf Vitex

Butterfly Bush

Butterfly Bush Buddleia

Mexican Sage

Blue Mistflower

Bluebonnets

Bluebonnets Lupinus texensis

Delphinium

Delphinium

Indigoandblue

In the Dark | Nightshades

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Lights Out

Nightshades

Datura

What do you do to get out of the heat  of the summer? Go to the movies. Right? So to celebrate Labor Day weekend here is a post with a movie theme.

Drama, Drama, Drama. The Datura puts on a show that is definitely an Academy Award winner. Our local Post office has a bed of Datura planted in an alcove in the front of the building. It is in a northern exposure. The very large, trumpet-shaped flowers unfurl and are showy in the evening as well as the morning. 

Purple Preview

Nightshades
Angel Trumpet (Brugmansia)

Angel Trumpet (Brugmansia)

This is in the Nightshade family, and as with most nightshade plants can be toxic. I have started this from seed for myself and a neighbor successfully by placing it directly in the soil in the spring.
The overall plant has a coarse texture but the flowers are remarkably beautiful. They are sweetly fragrant, about 12 in (30.5 cm) long and shaped like trumpets. The corolla has five points that are slightly recurved. The flowers are usually white but may be yellow or pink and are pendulous, hanging almost straight down.

  

Lighting and Special Effects

Ending Shots

White Flower Datura
Seed Pod

Seed Pod Datura 
Texas Native

This could be a Chick Flick with a big and happy Ending. It is very easy to start from seed.

*Many nightshades are poisonous to people as well as to cattle, horses and sheep. Some municipalities have banned the use of specific nightshades as landscape plants.


Family | Solanaceae




Additional Resources:

• LBWC, Texas
• International Brugmansia Society (IBADS), Florida

©  Grassroots Horticulture

2000-2015

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