Centaurea cyanus

Centaurea cyanus, the cornflower or bluebottle, is a slender annual herb of the family Asteraceae growing 30 to 90 cm tall, with wiry, grooved, greyish, cottony, branching stems. The narrow, lance-shaped lower leaves are sometimes toothed or lobed, the upper ones linear and entire. The flower heads are borne singly on long stalks, the deep, intense blue outer florets enlarged, flared and deeply slashed into trumpet-like rays surrounding a small cluster of inner reddish-purple florets; pink and white forms also occur in cultivation. It flowers through summer. Once an abundant weed of cornfields across Europe and now much reduced by herbicides but widely grown ornamentally, cornflower favours arable land, roadsides, waste ground and meadows. The bright blue ray florets are dried for herbal teas and as a mild traditional remedy.