Bachelor's Button

Meaning: celibacy

Having the botanical name of Centaurea cyanus, the annual flowering plant Bachelor’s button represents the family Asteraceae.

The inhabitant of Europe has such common names as Cornflower, Basket flower, Boutonniere and Bluebottle.

The plant may reach the length of 90 cm being borne on grey-greenish branch-like stems. The leaves of Bachelor’s button grow to 1-4 cm. Its blossoms usually come in bright blue color, being borne in flower heads named capitula with the diameter up to3 cm.  The blooms represent a ring of a several big florets that surround a central cluster of disc florets.

Centaurea cyanus is cultivated as a gardening ornamental plant with other cultivars coming in such pastel colors as pink and purple. Sometimes the plant serves as a culinary ornament. It makes a tea component and is popular in the Lady Grey blend of Twinings.

Bachelor's Button

By böhringer friedrich - under the Creative Commons Attribution ShareAlike 2.5 License

Blue Cornflowers

Centaurea Cyanus

By Donarreiskoffer - under the terms of the GNU Free Documentation License, Version 1.2