42 The Blue Bottle Centaury. 



The Blue Bottle Centaury. 



According to ancient fable, this plant was called Cyanus, 

 after a youth of that name, whose attachment to cornflowers was 

 so strong, that he employed his time chiefly in making garlands 

 of them, seldom leaving the fields as long as his favorite flower 

 was to be found, and always dressing himself in the fine blue 

 color of the flower he so much admired. At last he was found 

 dead in the corn field, in the midst of a quantity of Blue Bottles 

 he had gathered, which Flora, by changing his body into them, 

 made ever after memorials of his love. The Centaurea Cy- 

 anus — Blue Bottle, is in the class Syngenesia, order Frus- 

 tranea. The generic name is derived from the fabulous history 

 of Chiron, a Centaur, who taught mankind the use of herbs and 

 medicinal plants. It is related that he cured a wound inflicted 

 by a poisonous arrow of Hercules, by the aid of one of the 

 species of these plants. Its character is, calyx various, mostly 

 imbricate, roundish ; egret simple, various ; receptacle bristly ; 

 corols of the ray funnel-shape, longer, irregular. Our species is 

 an ornamental annual, bearing a handsome blue flower, from 

 June to August It is a native of Europe, and nowhere more 

 abundant than in the corn fields of Britain. It is naturalized in 

 the United States. The scales of the common calyx are mi- 

 nutely toothed ; leaves long and narrow, with nearly parallel 

 sides and entire, the lowermost toothed. By cultivation, of 

 course, the hues and florets are multiplied, and it has become 

 one of the summer favorites of the parterre. Phillips says, that 

 it is a hardy, annual plant, that will grow in almost, any soil, but 

 it succeeds best when sown in the autumn ; for those sown in 

 the spring seldom produce so many flowers, and it will not bear 

 transplanting. The only care required is, to keep the plants free 

 from weeds, and thin them when they branch too near each 

 other. 



He also gives directions for obtaining a beautiful blue, almost 

 equal to the ultramarine, from the flowers. After collecting a 

 quantity of them, pick out the petals or florets from the centre of 

 the flower, which are of a darker blue than those of the outside, 

 and pound them whilst quite fresh, in a glass or marble mortar 



