520 COMPOSITAE (COMPOSITE FAMILY) 



BACHELOR'S BUTTON 

 Centaurea Cyanus, L. 



Other English names: Bluebottle, Blue Bonnets, Ragged Robin, 



Corn Flower, Hurtsickle. 

 Introduced. Annual. Propagates by seeds. 

 Time of bloom : July to September. 

 Seed-time: August to October. 

 Range: Locally in many parts of the country; most common in 



Quebec, western New York, and Virginia. 

 Habitat : Fields, roadsides, and waste places. 



In Europe this plant is a pest of grain fields. In this country it 

 is much cultivated in flower gardens for its beauty, but has escaped 

 in many localities and, if neglected, may become troublesome. 



Stem one to two feet tall, very slender, branched and leafy and 

 softly woolly all over, giving the foliage a grayish green tint; 

 when old it becomes very hard and woody, whence its name of 

 Hurtsickle. Leaves alternate, three to six inches long, those on the 

 upper part of the plant linear and entire, those on the lower part 

 often toothed or pinnatifid. Flower-heads about an inch and a half 

 broad, solitary on long, slender peduncles, usually blue, but may 

 be violet, pink, or white ; florets all tubular, those in the center 

 small and slender, perfect, and fertile, those of the outer row much 

 longer, funnel-shaped, showy, and spreading, with deeply notched 

 edges, pistillate but sterile ; involucre ovoid, its bracts imbricated 

 in about four unequal series, of a greenish straw-color with darker 

 tips and margins, or fringed with chaffy teeth. Achenes four- 

 sided, somewhat flattened, and tipped with a pappus of rough, 

 rusty brown hairs of unequal length. These seeds have a vital- 

 ity of several years as shown by the recurrence of seedlings on 

 ground where the plants have been cultivated. 



Means of control 



Prevent seed development by cutting or pulling while in early 

 bloom. In this country the weed is seldom abundant in grain 

 fields, but where it does appear many of the seedlings may be 

 raked out with a weeding harrow, without injury to the crop, at 

 the time when the first lower, pinnatifid leaves have grown. 



