Cornflower

Once considered an unwelcome weed, cornflower is now a popular edible summer flower. Herbicides wiped out a good many cornflowers from the Danish landscape, but with the spread of more environmentally friendly methods of farming, wild cornflowers are making a comeback.

  • Where to Find It

    Cornflowers fare well in and around cornfields that aren't sprayed with chemicals, and along roads near farmland. They often mingle with poppies and chamomile, and together create a pretty quilt of green, blue, red, and cream. Cultivated cornflowers come in white, pink, dark red, and purple varieties, but in the wild the blue cornflower is the most common.

    • Grasslands.

  • When to Find It

    Cornflowers blossom between July and September.

    • Flowers: July, August, September.

  • Description

    The cornflower has a long stem that can grow to be 50-70 cm tall. Covered sparsely in hairs, it branches out as it develops. The plant is grayish-green in color and has small, oblong leaves that, like its stem, are fuzzy. Its blue flowerheads grow in rings that are between one and three cm in diameter. The flowers get darker in color towards their centers, until they appear almost purple. The higher the density of cornflowers in an area, the more flowers bloom on each plant.

  • Gathering

    Carefully snip off the flowers of the plant.

Risk of misidentifying the plant

There is no risk of mistaking the plant for another dangerous or undesirable plant.