156 FAMILIAR WILD FLOWERS. 



everywhere throughout Britain in meadows and hedgerows. 

 The corn-flower or blue-bottle the C. Cyanns is a very 

 beautiful species,, and one of the most characteristic plants 

 of the corn-field ; it is hence called par excellence the corn- 

 flower. The central part of the flower is bluish-purple, 

 the outer florets large, widely spreading, and of an intensely 

 deep and pure blue, vying in strength and brilliancy of 

 colour with the rich yellow of the corn-marigold or the 

 scarlet of the poppy, its companions of the harvest-field. 

 Other species are the star- thistle, or C. Calcitrapa, and the 

 yellow knapweed, or C. solstitial is. The first of these, a 

 striking-looking plant, is found occasionally by roadsides 

 and waste places in the south of England ; the second 

 seems to prefer similar localities when within the influence 

 of the sea breezes ; like the former, it is a southern and 

 somewhat rare plant. 



