Talk:Centaurea cyanus

Comments

While reading Mein Kampf I came across a passage where Adolf Hitler described a symbol used by German pan-nationalist in Austria. He mentioned the corn-flower as that symbol. 168.16.141.62 18:32, 25 January 2007 (UTC)

Untitled

"Cornflower" is also the name of a Crayola crayon. :) 66.67.97.228

Untitled

"The blue pigment is protocyanin, which in roses is red." Does no one else find this comment to need a bit more explanation? ... Chenel324 (talk) 03:05, 6 August 2008 (UTC)

Name

Why is it named "cornflower" if it's not the flower of maize (corn)? Does it grow around maize plants? Badagnani (talk) 23:25, 31 December 2008 (UTC)

Added. Badagnani (talk) 04:37, 1 January 2009 (UTC)

I think this is what is growing in my Iowa garden. It grows like a weed and it is hard to get rid of!!! People who visit do think it is pretty however!!! How long is the bloom season? —Preceding unsigned comment added by 207.177.114.161 (talk) 15:28, 30 May 2009 (UTC)

Requested move

The following discussion is an archived discussion of the proposal. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made in a new section on the talk page. No further edits should be made to this section.

The result of the proposal was moved. --BDD (talk) 17:36, 28 August 2013 (UTC)

Cornflower → Centaurea cyanus – scientific name is unambiguous exact name. "cornflower" is a common name, but it is more exactingly called "common cornflower" to distinguish from other Centaurea species (all of which are at their scientific names, which makes the title and layout of this article at odds with the others). So we have some other cornflowers....as well as chicory sometimes called it, and this species has many other common names. Exactness needs to trump accessibility if the former is compromised. Cas Liber (talk · contribs) 21:05, 21 August 2013 (UTC)

• Oppose this isn't a plant article, there's heraldic, emblematic, etc information on here as well. Seems like a split is in order if you want the plant to be different. -- 76.65.128.222 (talk) 23:32, 21 August 2013 (UTC)

• Not a problem, for instance lion has a large section on heraldry,mythology etc. Cas Liber (talk · contribs) 03:52, 22 August 2013 (UTC)

• It's a very big problem. The heraldic element is not called "Centaurea cyanus", and the lion article is not called "Panthera leo". The heraldic element refers to cornflowers, and the plant portion is about a specific cornflower, As long as the article remains at "cornflower" there is some sense, once it is renamed, you're doing original research in calling the heraldic element "Centaurea cyanus" -- 76.65.128.222 (talk) 06:57, 22 August 2013 (UTC)

• Support Way too much ambiguity going both ways (too many common names for the plant described here; too many different species with this same common name). I've always heard this called "bachelor's button" in the U.S. That name is unfortunately at the plural Bachelor's buttons as a set index page - it should be singular. First Light (talk) 01:10, 22 August 2013 (UTC)
• Support Cultural information is included in a species article, we do not have Species x (cultural information), so the argument to remove this is not correct. -AfadsBad (talk) 03:27, 22 August 2013 (UTC)
• Support — Cas Liber shows that the common name "cornflower" is ambiguous (experience tells me there are inevitably more "cornflower" species out there, not to mention that corn (maize) has corn flowers), as is also the word "cornflower", that the hatnote already at Cornflower pointing to Cornflower (Redwall) (which leads one to List of Redwall characters, section Cornflower) shows. In addition there are articles for Cornflower blue and Cornflowers (painting). Hamamelis (talk) 06:25, 22 August 2013 (UTC)
• Oppose. We should use WP:COMMONNAME for flower articles wherever possible. For some obscure cases less common flowers there may no common name, in which case of course the scientific name has to be used. But Wikipedia is meant to be accessible to the layman; it's not a scientific treatise aimed as the specialists. --Bermicourt (talk) 06:43, 22 August 2013 (UTC)

I have replaced the phrase "some obscure cases" with more precise wording. Bermicourt (talk) 12:36, 22 August 2013 (UTC)

It is simply not true that these are obscure cases. Most plants have no common name, especially as new species are discovered all the time. And the common name one uses depends on what is common to you. I can almost guarantee that "cornflower" is a common name used for more plants than just Centaurea cyanus and chicory species.
I also think people can easily figure out that C. cyanus is the species name, and that "cornflower" is just one of several common names for the species, a name shared by other species, not just C. cyanus. Unless they can't read. In which case, what are they doing reading the article? Hamamelis (talk) 08:01, 22 August 2013 (UTC)

Just to be sure I wasn't simply expressing my own WP:POV, I looked up Centaurea cyanus in five reference books. The results were: cornflower, cornflower, cornflower, cornflower and ... cornflower. In every case the common name was a large, bold heading and the Latin name was secondary. QED. Bermicourt (talk) 11:38, 22 August 2013 (UTC)

Did you use any reference books that list scientific binomials first in any case? However, for the 350,000 species of angiosperms the vast majority do not have common names at all, many others do not have them in English, so your arguement that "in some obscure cases there may be no common name" is false. -AfadsBad (talk) 12:12, 22 August 2013 (UTC)

That is a bit of a red herring. I have already implied that if there were no common name, the most common scientific name should be used. But that is not the case for the vast majority of common flowers and certainly not for the this one. Bermicourt (talk) 12:36, 22 August 2013 (UTC)

It is not a "flower article," though, it is a plant article. There seems to be a lot of confusion generated by simply calling this article by the common name. This article is about a species of flowering plant, by definition, with some evolutionary oddities, all 325,000 species of angiosperms, or flowering plants, have flowers, and the vast majority of these do jot have common names. For commercial flowers, I believe there may be articles about the flower alone, and maybe there is sufficient information about this one to create such an article. This particular article, however, is about the plant, and the flower, biologic and cultural, is part of the plant. Calling this article by the name of its flower alone seems to be confusing, and seems to be implying that the flower is the topic. The plant is the topic. -AfadsBad (talk) 15:54, 22 August 2013 (UTC)

That's right — Centaurea cyanus is the only commonly used name that describes this precise plant species. The vernacular name "cornflower" is used to describe several species, while there are several different vernacular names used to describe Centaurea cyanus. WP:FLORA was written just for this purpose, plants which have multiple vernacular names, and single vernacular names that describe several different plants. It's also why the most popular garden book ever written for the general public (Sunset Western Garden Guide) uses binomial names rather than the all-too-common and regional vernacular names as titles for their species articles.[1] First Light (talk) 16:40, 22 August 2013 (UTC)

""cornflower" is used to describe several species". Not according to my five sources; it very precisely is used only to describe C. cyanus. So just place your vote, explain your logic and please let me do the same. Bermicourt (talk) 19:54, 22 August 2013 (UTC)

Reaching consensus requires discussion, so popping up a vote and logic, then asking others to confine themselves to doing the same will not work. Still, you have said your piece, and corrected it, and any response to others' comments is optional. I learned from your post, though, that other editors may also consider the article to be about only part of the plant, the flower, and that this might be useful to clear up before future discussions. Thanks.-AfadsBad (talk) 21:14, 22 August 2013 (UTC)

All opinions and logical arguments are welcome, Bermicourt. Nobody is trying to stifle yours. Chicory is also called "cornflower," as our cornflower article points out, and as these sources state: [2] [3] The following sources generally and vaguely apply "cornflower" to the entire genus, or to several of the Centaurea species: [4] [5] [6] Some other Centaurea species are called "cornflower" with qualifiers: Centaurea montana is called "perennial cornflower"[7]; Centaurea dealbata is called "persian cornflower"; Centaurea kotschyana is called "Kotschy's cornflower."[8] Centaurea cyanus is the only widely used name that applies solely to the species discussed in our article. First Light (talk) 21:41, 22 August 2013 (UTC)

Thanks folks, and I'm sorry if I came on a little strong! ;) The outcome now appears a foregone conclusion, but if the title doesn't change, it would make sense to have some sort of clarification in the lede along the lines of "this article is about the common cornflower. For other related species see xxxx" or "see the list below" or whatever. As laymen, we may prefer to see common names as titles, but equally we want to be able to learn e.g. that there are other varieties of cornflower and have links to them. Happy editing. Bermicourt (talk) 07:38, 23 August 2013 (UTC)

Thanks for the comment - page move discussions seem to be among the most volatile - your comments were mild compared to many I've seen! A move to the species name should include a WP:Hatnote like you recommend, perhaps including a Cornflower (disambiguation) link and page. I now see another plant in a completely different genus called "Native Cornflower". It's a good example of local vernacular, because "native" could only mean "native to Australia", which is where it lives. First Light (talk) 19:20, 23 August 2013 (UTC)

Your comments are useful to the discussion, imo, because I learned something from your approach to the article title. There is a bot that alerts editors to these discussions and, even if you generally disagree, I think your input would be beneficial to Wikipedia, and I hope you continue to contribute. -AfadsBad (talk) 19:50, 23 August 2013 (UTC)

• Support per FirstLight. "Bachelor's button" is the vernacular name I know this plant by, I'm mostly familiar with "cornflower" in the context of cornflower blue. I suspect this may be an WP:ENGVAR thing, with cornflower more common in the UK, and bachelor's button in the US. Here is a reference for another "cornflower", Agrostemma githago. Plantdrew (talk) 02:49, 23 August 2013 (UTC)
• Support due to potential confusion with other Centaurea species (or the genus itself), chickory, Brunonia australis, etc. as well as cornflower not being the primary common name for Centaurea cyanus in North America.--Melburnian (talk) 02:37, 26 August 2013 (UTC)

The above discussion is preserved as an archive of the proposal. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made in a new section on this talk page. No further edits should be made to this section.

Symbolic use

A recent Guardian article on the use of the cornflower as an ultra‑right symbol by the Aufbruch deutscher Patrioten – Mitteldeutschland (AdP) could be worked into a new section on symbolic use. The DE page also has a list of historical symbols too. RobbieIanMorrison (talk) 14:07, 11 January 2019 (UTC)

References

Hi,RobbieIanMorrison. What is meant by "the DE page"?--Quisqualis (talk) 18:15, 11 January 2019 (UTC)

Genetics

Centaurea cyanus is a diploid flower (2n = 24). The genetic diversity within populations is high, although there could be a future decline in diversity due to fragmentation of population and intensive agriculture. — Preceding unsigned comment added by AlCropsCT (talk • contribs) 16:29, 17 November 2020 (UTC)

References

Uses

Human food

The flower of Centaurea cyanus can be eaten raw, dried or cooked. Dried petals are used in tea and spices. Their main purpose is to add color to the drinks or food. There are cheeses or oils that contain raw petals. They can also be added to salads, drinks or deserts for garnishing purposes in raw or dried form.

Ornamental use

Centaurea cyanus is used as an ornamental plant. There are varieties with blue, white or pink petals.

Pigment

The blue color of Centaurea cyanus is due to protocyanin, an anthocyanin pigment that is also found in roses. Different anthocyanins derived from Centaurea cyanus are used as natural additives in food products, such as yoghurts.

Medicinal purpose

Centaurea cyanus contains a wide range of pharmacologically active compounds, such as flavonoids, anthocyanins and aromatic acids. Especially the flower head finds application in herbal medicine, but leaves and seeds are also used for pharmacological purposes, albeit to a lesser extent.

In particular, extract from the flower heads have anti-inflammatory properties used in the treatment of minor ocular inflammations. Antioxidant properties are high due to ascorbic acid and phenolic content. Furthermore, extracts of the flower head and vegetative parts of the plant were shown to have gastroprotective effects due to their content of quercetin, apigenin and caffeic acid derivates..

References

Seed harvesting

The seed harvest occurs either by hand or in an agricultural setting with a seed harvesting machine.

Hand collecting can be time-consuming and yields are rather low.

A seed harvesting machine is more efficient than doing the collecting by hand, but it is costly. The main principle of such a machine is that it brushes the ripe seeds off the plant, creates a cross flow fan action that generates sufficient air velocity to hold and gather the seeds into the seed bunker.

References

Description

I would like to suggest that the following sentence be added between the last and the-second-last sentence of the existing "Description" section:

Fruits are approx. 3.5 mm long with 2-3 mm long pappus bristles .

Solanummelongena (talk) 11:50, 22 November 2020 (UTC)

References

Ecology

I think that it may make sense to add a section about the ecology of Centaurea cyanus between the existing "Distribution" and "Cultivation" section. A major aim of this section should be to point out the difficult relationship of Centaurea cyanus to agriculture, which is already mentioned several times in the existing article, but not discussed in detail. Please find my draft of the new section below:

Weed in arable crops

Centaurea cyanus is considered a noxious weed in arable crops, especially cereals and rapeseed . In winter wheat, one plant per m² can cause a yield loss of up to 30 kg / ha . Centaurea cyanus produces around 800 seed per plant, which are either shed shortly before the harvest of cereals, or they are threshed together with the cereal grains, contributing to the further spread of the species by the harvesting machinery and contaminated seed. The occurrence of Centaurea cyanus strongly decreased during the last decades due to improved seed cleaning, more intensive nitrogen fertilization and herbicide use. However, Centaurea cyanus has become more common in cropland due to an increase in crop rotations dominated by winter cereals and rapeseed and the use of more selective herbicides with a low effectiveness against Centaurea cyanus . In addition, the emergence of resistance against the herbicide class of sulfonylureas has been reported recently . Due to its strong roots, Centaurea cyanus is difficult to control mechanically in spring .

Fodder for insects and birds

The pollen of Centaurea cyanus is used by several different insect species. Insects of the orders Hymenoptera and Diptera are particularly attracted by the flower . As Centaurea cyanus is a self-incompatible species, it needs external pollination. The nectar of Centaurea cyanus is very sweet with a sugar content of 34 %. Due to its high sugar production of up to 0.2 mg sugar per day and flower, the species is highly appreciated by beekeepers .

The seeds of Centaurea cyanus are one of the favourite foods of the European goldfinch.

I think that it would make sense to relocate the information obout the European goldfinch from the "Uses" to the new "Ecology" section if the latter is created."

Control of insect pests

Centaurea cyanus was found to produce volatiles attracting Microplitis mediator , which is a major parasitoid of the cabbage moth (Mamestra brassicae), which is the most important pest of cabbage (Brassica oleracea) in central Europe. Planting "Centaurea cyanus" in cabbage fields was thus suggested as an alternative to the widespread use of insecticides for the control of Mamestra brassicae. Field experiments showed that planting "Centaurea cyanus" in cabbage filds at a density of 1 plant / m² can result in a significant increase in parasitation of [Mamestra brassicae] larvae, predation of Mamestra brassicae eggs (e.g. by carabid beetles or spiders) and ultimately cabbage yield .

Solanummelongena (talk) 11:50, 22 November 2020 (UTC)

References

Cultivation

I think that the existing "Cultivation" section would likely benefit from some expansion, as it contains little technical information about how to grow the cornflower. Furthermore, I saw that the user AlCropsCT suggested to make a new "Genetics" section. If this is approved of, I think that it would make sense to relocate the information on different cultivars to this section. Maybe the title should then be changed from "Genetics" to "Genetics and Breeding" or similar. As for the "Cultivation" section, I would suggest to delete the existing text, and replace it by the one below. I tried to integrate most of the information from the existing version into my draft, or, as already mentioned, relocate them elesewhere.

Soil and climate requirements

Centaurea cyanus requires full sun and neutral (6.6-7.5) to mildly alkaline (7.6-7.8), moist and well-drained soil. However, Centaurea cyanus is quite tolerant to drought once established .

Sowing

For summer-blooming plants, sowing should be executed in late spring. In moderate climates, however, it is also possible to sow Centaurea cyanus in early fall. In this case, plants will already start to flower in the following spring. Recommended spacing between plants is approx. 20 to 30 cm . Centaurea cyanus can germinate from up to 10 cm depth, but the best result is obtained at 1 cm sowing depth . Germination occurs quickly after sowing.

Fertilization and cultural practices

High phosphorus fertilization in mid-summer will increase flower production. Mulching is recommended to prevent drying out of the soil and exposure of the root system to the sun .

Pests and Diseases

In general, Centaurea cyanus is not very susceptible to pests and plant diseases. However, it may be affected by stem rot and stem rust if grown too tightly or by powdery mildew (Best Plants 2020) . Furthermore, aphids and leafhoppers can cause relevant damage to Centaurea cyanus .

Solanummelongena (talk) 11:50, 22 November 2020 (UTC)

References

Genetics and Breeding

This is how I would change the "Genetics" section which AlCropsCT suggested to add to the existing article. Please note that it contains some information that should be relocated here from the existing "Cultivation" section (as mentioned above).

Genetics

Centaurea cyanus is a diploid flower (2n = 24). The genetic diversity within populations is high, although there could be a future decline in diversity due to fragmentation of population and intensive agriculture. In general, Centaurea cyanus is a self-incompatible species. However, selfing still occurs occassionally, but results in inbreeding depression .

Cultivars

The information contained in this section should be re-located here from the existing "Cultivation" section. Some sentences were slightly reformulated

Several cultivars of Centaurea cyanus with varying pastel colours, including pink and purple, have been selected for ornamental purposes. The species is also grown for the cutflower industry in Canada for use by florists. Doubled blue cultivars (such as 'Blue Boy' or 'Blue Diadem') are most commonly used for this purpose, but white, pink, lavender and black (actually a very dark maroon) cultivars are also used, albeit to a lesser extent.

Breeding goals

As for all ornamental plants, important goals of Centaurea cyanus breeding include the induction of phenotypic variation (e.g. in flower coloration, size and shape, foliage charcteristics or plant height), higher flower yield, resistance to pests and diseases as well as tolerance to abiotic stress (e.g. extreme temperatures, drought or salinity) .

Solanummelongena (talk) 11:55, 22 November 2020 (UTC)

References

Uses

I would suggest to add the following sub-section about phytoremediation to the end of the draft of the "Uses" chapter written by AlCropsCT:

Phytoremediation

Centaurea cyanus has been evaluated for phytoremediation of soils contaminated with lead. Inoculation of the contaminated soil with Glomus spp. (fungus) and Pseudomonas spp. (bacterium) would significantly enhance the biomass production and lead uptake of Centaurea cyanus .

Solanummelongena (talk) 12:12, 22 November 2020 (UTC)

References

Prussian uniforms mein arsch

Prussian uniforms are/were a much darker blue. The flower is closer to French uniforms. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 2A02:2788:1008:2C3:E2CB:4EFF:FE88:1A2C (talk) 00:01, 10 February 2021 (UTC)