Cornflower

Cornflower has ridden along in European grain fields for centuries, so entwined with wheat and rye that old herbalists simply called it the cornflower, corn being the old word for any grain. Young men once tucked the blossom into a buttonhole to signal they were courting, and folklore held that if the flower wilted too quickly, the love was doomed to fade just as fast, which is how it earned the name bachelor's button. Herbalists in the German and French countryside dried the petals for teas meant to settle the stomach and brewed cooled infusions to soothe tired eyes after long days in the sun or at close needlework. The vivid blue petals also found their way into inks, dyes, and wine to lend color long before synthetic dyes existed.