Annual. — Flowers from June to August. 
Root somewhat spindle-shaped, with many rigid fibres. Stem 
upright, 2 or 3 feet high, much branched, leafy, angular, and co- 
vered with a loose, cottony down. Leaves sessile, alternate, 3-ribbed, 
strap-spear-shaped, pointed, entire, whitish and cottony underneath, 
the lower ones broader, mostly toothed or pinnatifid, but the radical 
ones are entire. Flowers numerous, solitary, on naked stalks. 
Involucrum egg-shaped, its scales smooth, serrated, with sharp, 
white or brown teeth. Florets of the Ray large and spreading, 
generally with more than five segments, of a bright sky-blue ; those 
of the disk purplish. Filaments surrounded, just below the anthers, 
with a fringe of silvery glandular hairs. Anthers almost black, 
horny at the top. Stigma cloven, and projecting a little above the 
anthers. Seed somewhat inversely-egg-shaped, rather compressed, 
a little downy, and crowned with the bristly calyx ( pappus of Linn. ) 
The expressed juice of the florets is said to make a good blue ink ; 
it also stains linen of a beautiful blue ; but the colour is not perma- 
nent in the mode in which it has hitherto been applied. Sir James 
Edward Smith says, the wild flowers afford a blue for painting in 
water-colours, the expressed juice requiring only to be mixed 
with cold alum water. The same author informs us that the sepa- 
rate floret in English Botany, coloured with this, by way of expe- 
riment, has now stood well for 30 years. — White, dark purple, and 
other coloured varieties, are frequently cultivated amongst other 
hardy annuals in flower gardens. — G.W.Sandys, Esq. of Pembroke 
College, found several plants of the white flowered variety in corn- 
fields near Stroud in Gloucestershire, in 1832. — The Blue-bottle is 
one of the most beautiful of our wild plants, but it is a pernicious 
weed to the Farmer, and requires his greatest care to eradicate ; as 
it is not only very injurious to his corn, but blunts the sickles used 
in reaping it : from this circumstance it is, by some old authors, 
called Hurt-sickle. It is also called Blue-ball, Blue-blow , and Corn- 
flower. In Scotland it is called Blue Bonnets. 
“ There is a flower, a purple flower. 
Sown by the wind, nursed by the shower, 
O’er which Love has breathed a powerful spell, 
The truth of whispering hope to tell ; 
And with scarlet poppies around like a bower, 
Found the maiden her mystic flower. 
Now, gentle flower, I pray thee tell. 
If my lover loves me, and loves me well ; 
So may the fall of the morning dew, 
Keep the sun from fading thy tender blue.” 
L. E. L. 
