Leaf
Salicyna, Wikimedia · CC BY-SA 4.0
Cornflower
Centaurea cyanus L.
Also known as: Bachelor's button
Family: Asteraceae
30 to 80 cm
Cultivated fields, waste ground, roadsides
Flowering: May – August
Full sun
Part shade
Hardy to -15°C
❓ How do you recognise this plant?
So intensely blue that it has given its name to the colour itself in several languages. Perennial cornflower is a robust perennial with large, bright blue, solitary flowers at the top of whitish-hairy stems, whereas cornflower is a slimmer annual of cornfields, with smaller flowers and slender, branched stems.
🍃 Leaves
Narrow, linear, slightly woolly
🌸 Flowers
Intense bright blue, flower head with spreading outer florets
🍎 Fruits
Achenes topped with a small pappus
🪵 Bark
Annual herbaceous plant with an upright stem, branched in the upper part.
🗺️ Distribution
Native to the eastern Mediterranean basin, naturalised throughout Europe; has become rare in French crops following herbicide use
🐝 Value for pollinators
Blue flowers rich in nectar and pollen, very attractive to bees, butterflies and hoverflies
✂️ Horticultural uses
Grown in flower borders, wildflower meadows and country bouquets, a symbol of flowering fallows
⚠️ Possible toxicity
The flowers are traditionally used and may be eaten in small quantities (culinary decoration); do not present the whole species as edible.
⚠️ Look-alike species
Cornflower
Centaurea cyanus
Perennial cornflower
Centaurea montana
Perennial cornflower is a robust perennial with large, bright blue, solitary flowers at the top of whitish-hairy stems, whereas cornflower is a slimmer annual of cornfields, with smaller flowers and slender, branched stems.
🌿 Other Asteraceae to discover
ℹ️ Educational profile — do not use it to judge whether a plant is edible or safe.
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