Plant id please

[Labralion]

Hello got an app on my phone but didn't work for this! Stealing ideas from neighbouring gardens (whilst trying to look casual)!

Cornflower

I call it cornflower too, but there are two kinds of cornflower. Think it’s Centaurea Montana - www.rhs.org.uk/Plants/3364/Centaurea-montana/Details

Definitely Centaurea

Are you using the "Candide" app that's what I use. I've posted many Unknown plant names on there and got responses straight away.

Definitely cornflower. I’m a rubbish but enthusiastic gardener and on our daily walks keep admiring thriving plants in Neighbours’ gardens. My 11 year old, clearly bored with my wittering, told me to download an app called Picture This, which is a plant identifier. Love it. You can even upload old photos.

Botanical name: Centaurea montana

Thanks so much! The app is plant snap not sure if it's up to much although seemed to do ok with the others!

Oh, I was searching for this plant online a couple of days ago. I have it in my garden but didn't know what it was called.

Yes to Centaurea montana. It's a type of knapweed. I think it might be called a cornflower in the US but in the UK cornflower refers to field cornflowers, a different branch of the family (also a lovely blue flower). So if you're searching for some to buy, search Centaurea montana and not cornflower.

In the UK it's called a perennial cornflower. The annual (field) cornflower is Centaurea cyanus, same genus, not a different branch of the family at all. The family is Asteraceae, which covers daisies, thistles, sunflowers, feverfew dahlias, chrysantheumums, etc. In fact it's just a renaming of the old family Compositae, which was so called because in all of them, what at first looks like a flower is in fact a flower head f many flowers. If you pull off one of the "petals" of the cornflower, you will see it is actually a tiny flower in its own right - you can almost see it on the photo. And each of the more purply bits in the centre is also an individual flower.

They are very beautiful and bees love them. It will seed all over if HAPPY but tends to get mildew later in season but always recovers

It was so pretty! I'm going to have a look today!