520 COMPOSITAE (COMPOSITE FAMILY) 
BACHELOR’S BUTTON 
Centatirea 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 is 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. 
