COEN FLOWEE. 



Ceidatirea cyanas. 



HE two names by which this 

 plant is known to the happy 

 peasant, corn-flower and blue- 

 bottle, demand no explanatory 

 disquisition. Before the flower 

 expands, the ovoid involucre 

 bears a very fair resemblance 

 to a bottle, but the completion 

 of the growth makes a great 

 change in the general con- 

 figuration, the resplendent blue 

 florets forming a series of 

 stars, so that the bottle is 

 now hidden by its adorn- 

 ments. As a garden plant 

 it varies much in colour, and 

 a pale variety has been selected 

 for the present figure. 

 This occasional occupant of the corn-fields is regarded 

 by the botanists as of South European or West Asiatic 

 origin, having been spread abroad from its original habitat 

 by commerce. It has had the good fortune, owing doubt- 

 less to its conspicuous beauty, to be recognised by all who 

 have written about plants. In Hippocrates it figures as an 



