Americanized Field Scabious Gardens: Blue Rough Beauty for Tough Sites

Summary: Americanized field scabious gardens muster bristly, hairy, spiny, weedy teasel family members away from farm, garden and ranch animals and plants.

field scabious flower (right) and developing fruit (left): Steve Dewey, Utah State University, Bugwood.org, CC BY 3.0 United States, via Forestry Images

Americanized field scabious gardens ameliorate unpopularly barren, compacted, disturbed, polluted soils and appreciate cultivated croplands, farmlands, fields, gardens, orchards, pastures and rangelands in naturalized niches throughout Canada, Mexico and the United States.

The perennial herb brings to four the number of herbaceous members in the Dipsacaceae family of aster-like teasels to bear unwelcome weed designations in North America. Bristly foliage, nutrient-grabbing taproots and prickly stems cull weed designations in Colorado, Iowa, Missouri and Oregon for cutleaf teasel, nonnative biennial and short-lived perennial from Europe. Prickly, spiny foliage, prickly stems, resource-grabbing taproots and viral disease transmission drive west Russian teasel into unwelcome weed status in Colorado, Iowa, Missouri and New Mexico.

Europe's biennial, rough-haired, spiny Indian teasel and perennial, stiff-haired field scabious respectively endure weed sanctions in Iowa and in Canada's Alberta, British Columbia and Saskatchewan provinces.

Field scabious furnishes seedling stages with club-shaped, 0.47- to 0.71-inch- (12- to 18-millimeter-) long, 0.16- to 0.24-inch- (4- to 6-millimeter-) wide cotyledons with somewhat indented tips.

Embryonic leaves give way to first leaf stages with oval shapes, wavy margins and white-haired surfaces and to subsequent leaf stages with shallow to deep lobes. Dull gray-green, mature, opposite-arranged, 2.36- to 9.84-inch- (6- to 25-centimeter-) long, 0.79- to 2.36-inch- (2- to 6-centimeter-) wide foliage has surfaces covered with short, stiff hairs. Field scabious, named Knautia arvensis ([Christopher] Knaut's cultivated field plant), includes five- to 15-lobed stalked and toothed lower, and stalkless and toothed to deep-lobed upper, leaves.

Americanized field scabious gardens jumble opposite-arranged, oblong to lance-shaped Indian (Dipsacus sativus) and west Russian (D. fullonum) and oval to lance-shaped cutleaf (D. laciniatus) teasel leaves.

Field scabious, commonly named blue buttons, blue caps, gypsy rose, knautia and pincushion, knows irregular, perfect inflorescences 0.59 to 1.58 inches (1.5 to 4 centimeters) across.

Modified, protective, 0.39- to 0.59-inch- (10- to 15-millimeter-) long leaves called bracts line the terminal flower clusters into one row during June through August bloom times. The tube-shaped, 0.35- to 0.47-inch- (9- to 12-millimeter-) long flowers each maintain one pistil, four stamens, four to five petals and four two- to three-toothed sepals. Blue- to purple-blooming floral clusters nestle on the purple-spotted, vertical stems atop stiff-haired bases in mature, 19.68- to 51.18-inch- (50- to 130-centimeter-) tall, rough-textured field scabious.

Lavender, pale lilac or pink Indian teasel blooms, lilac to white west Russian teasel blossoms and white cutleaf teasel flowers occur in Americanized field scabious gardens.

Dry, nonexplosive, one-seeded fruits called achenes protected by four-ribbed, hairy bracts optimally produce 2,000 four-sided, light brown, long hair-covered, rectangular seeds per plant per growing season.

Temperatures of 50 to 68 degrees Fahrenheit (10 to 20 degrees Celsius) at 0.39- to 0.79-inch (1- to 2-centimeter) depths quicken germination of field scabious seeds. The 0.19- to 0.24-inch- (5- to 6-millimeter-) long, 0.08-inch- (2-millimeter-) wide seeds generally remain 16 percent viable after 32 months despite reported germinations of 35-year-old seeds. Seeds, sepal-fused cuplike structures called calyxes and stamens separate field scabious, described by Swedish botanist Carl Linnaeus (May 23, 1707-Jan. 10. 1778), from blue-flowering, similar-looking asters.

Americanized field scabious gardens tangle teasels up into ground reflection-, surface runoff-fighting ground covers in courtyards and on problem sites away from croplands, pastures and rangelands.

Field scabious (foreground) grows on lawn of the Permanent Mission of the United States to the United Nations and Other International Organizations in Geneva, Switzerland, as participant in Geneva's Garden Charter; the Canton of Geneva prepared the Prairie Fleurie / Mélange de Genève seed mix, which includes field scabious (Knautia arvensis); Geneva, southwestern Switzerland; Friday, May 11, 2012, 09:27:27, U.S. Mission photo by Eric Bridiers: United States Mission Geneva (US Mission Geneva), CC BY ND 2.0 Generic, via Flickr

Acknowledgment

My special thanks to talented artists and photographers/concerned organizations who make their fine images available on the internet.

Image credits:

field scabious flower (right) and developing fruit (left): Steve Dewey, Utah State University, Bugwood.org, CC BY 3.0 United States, via Forestry Images @ http://www.forestryimages.org/browse/detail.cfm?imgnum=1459553

Field scabious (foreground) grows on lawn of the Permanent Mission of the United States to the United Nations and Other International Organizations in Geneva, Switzerland, as participant in Geneva's Garden Charter; the Canton of Geneva prepared the Prairie Fleurie / Mélange de Genève seed mix, which includes field scabious (Knautia arvensis); Geneva, southwestern Switzerland; Friday, May 11, 2012, 09:27:27, U.S. Mission photo by Eric Bridiers: United States Mission Geneva (US Mission Geneva), CC BY ND 2.0 Generic, via Flickr @ https://www.flickr.com/photos/us-mission/7175503986/

For further information:

Coulter, Thomas. 1823. "4. K. arvensis." Mémoire sur les Dipsacées. Page 29. Geneva, Switzerland: J.J. Paschoud.
Available via Biblioteca Digital del Real Jardín Botánico de Madrid @ http://bibdigital.rjb.csic.es/ing/Libro.php?Libro=6174

Dickinson, Richard; and Royer, France. 2014. Weeds of North America. Chicago IL; London, England: The University of Chicago Press.

"Knautia arvensis (L.) Coult." Tropicos® > Name Search.
Available @ http://www.tropicos.org/Name/11200013

Linnaeus, Carl. 1753. "8. Scabiosa arvensis." Species Plantarum, vol. I: 99. Holmiae [Stockholm, Sweden]: Laurentii Salvii [Laurentius Salvius].
Available via Biodiversity Heritage Library @ http://biodiversitylibrary.org/page/358118

Maunder, John E. "Caprifoliaceae: Honeysuckle Family [Dipsaceae Section: Teasels]: Knautia arvensis." A Digital Natural History of Newfoundland and Labrador > A Digital Flora of Newfoundland and Labrador Vascular Plants > Dipsaceae Section. Last updated Jan. 7, 2006.
Available @ http://www.digitalnaturalhistory.com/flora_dipsaceae_index.htm

"Scabiosa arvensis L." Tropicos® > Name Search.
Available @ http://www.tropicos.org/Name/11200222

Weakley, Alan S.; Ludwig, J. Christopher; and Townsend, John F. 2012. Flora of Virginia. Edited by Bland Crowder. Fort Worth TX: BRIT Press, Botanical Research Institute of Texas.