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Catananche caerulea
Also called Blue Cupidone, Sunflower, Blue Strawflower
Cupid's dart is a short-lived perennial daisy with greyish foliage and blue-purple (sometimes white) flowerheads, grown in gardens and dried arrangements. The key to growing it is full sun and very well-drained soil.
Catananche caerulea, or Cupid's dart, is a greyish green perennial herbaceous plant with a basal leaf rosette and conspicuous blue-purple or sometimes white flowerheads, belonging to the daisy family. It is a popular garden plant and is often used in dried flower arrangements.
It is native to the Mediterranean region. The flower was supposedly used by the ancient Greeks as a key ingredient in a love potion, hence the common name "Cupid's dart".
Catananche caerulea is grown in the garden as an ornamental short-lived perennial, which may re-seed spontaneously. It prefers full sun with good drainage. It is drought tolerant.
Several selections are grown, among which 'Amor Blue', 'Major', with larger flowers, 'Alba' and 'Amor White', white with purple floret tubes. The cultivar C. caerulea 'Major' has gained the Royal Horticultural Society's Award of Garden Merit.
Cupid's dart occurs in the wild in western North-Africa (Morocco, Algeria, Tunisia and Libya) and south-western Europe (Portugal, Spain including the Balearic Islands, Andorra, France, and Italy). It is naturalized in Czechoslovakia and may temporarily occur elsewhere when it escapes from cultivation.
Text excerpted from the Wikipedia article Catananche caerulea by its contributors, under CC BY-SA 4.0; the excerpts and the care summary drawn from them are shared under the same licence.
The care summary was written by AI (Claude, Anthropic) from the sources on this page, with general growing knowledge where they are silent. Check before relying on it.
Life form, climate and native range: World Checklist of Vascular Plants, Royal Botanic Gardens, Kew (CC BY 3.0), reformatted; see Plants of the World Online.
