Cupid's-dart

Catananche caerulea, called Cupid's-dart or blue succory, is an erect perennial herb in the family Asteraceae native to dry rocky habitats of the western Mediterranean basin, from Portugal and Spain across to southern France, Italy, and northwest Africa. Plants form a basal rosette of long narrow grass-like leaves arising from a tough fibrous taproot, with one to several slender wiry flowering stems 40-70 cm tall, sparsely branched and clothed in fine appressed hairs. Basal leaves are narrowly linear-lanceolate, 10-25 cm long and 3-10 mm wide, entire or with a few small distant teeth, grey-green and softly pubescent; cauline leaves are very few and much reduced. The inflorescence consists of solitary terminal flower heads 3-5 cm across borne on long peduncles. Each head is composed entirely of strap-shaped (ligulate) florets in bright sky-blue to lavender-blue with a darker centre, surrounded by a distinctive involucre of broad papery silvery-white scarious bracts arranged in many overlapping rows, which persist long after flowering and have made the species popular for dried floral arrangements. Flowering takes place from June to September. Fruits are silky-haired achenes crowned with a feathery pappus. The species inhabits dry stony grasslands and rocky slopes.