Pasqueflower

Description

The pasqueflower is a small herbaceous perennial of the buttercup family, 10-25 centimetres tall. It is entirely covered with a dense, soft silvery down, giving it a velvety look. In spring it produces large solitary bell-shaped flowers, an intense purple with a golden-yellow centre of stamens. After flowering it develops striking feathery seed heads, made up of long silky filaments.

Habitat and distribution

It is native to western and central Europe, where it grows in dry, chalky grassland, on sunny slopes and heaths. It prefers poor, stony, very free-draining soils, in full sun.

Cultivation

It is a lovely plant for the rock garden and sunny border, very hardy but demanding as to drainage. It wants full sun and a poor, stony, well-drained soil, ideally chalky. It dislikes waterlogging. Once established it should be left undisturbed, as it resents transplanting.

• Plant in full sun, in very free-draining soil
• Avoid waterlogging, which causes rot
• Do not move mature plants; they resent transplanting

Cautions and conservation

Like many buttercups, it is toxic if eaten fresh, due to irritant substances. In the wild it is classed as near threatened: the loss of dry chalk grassland, through the abandonment of grazing and agricultural intensification, threatens its wild populations.