Description
Medium to tall greyish, hair, erect annual, Leaves narrow-lanceolate, pointed. Flowers dull purple, occasionally white, 30-50mm, with long leaf-like sepals much exceeding the petals, born on long slender stalks. Habitat: A weed of cornfields, occasionally in waste places, to 2000m. Flowering Season: May-August. Distribution: Indigenous Mediterranean. Naturalized throughout Europe, except Spitsbergen. This beautiful species dramatically declined in recent years due to cleaner agricultural seed and the use of herbicides. The seeds are poisonous. In former times these seeds were also harvested with the grain and effected sometimes dead after eaten bread with the grinded seeds in it.
