Botanical name: Scabiosa columbaria
Folk names: Lilac-flowered scabious

Type: Perennial

Wildlife: Nectar for butterflies and bumblebees. Seeds for birds.

Flowers: June to October

Decorative merit: ‘Pinhead’ flowerheads filled with tiny, soft mauve flowers, on shorter, daintier stems than its relative field scabious, growing from hairy basal leaves.

Where: Sun. Front of herb / dry / gravel patches or at the front of borders and wild patches. Try in containers.

Folklore: See field scabious.

Honeysuckle relative of field scabious.

Donate seeds to Exeter Seed Bank