Updated 31 January 2024
Botanical characteristics
- Kingdom: Plantae
- Division: Magnoliophyta
- Class: Magnoliopsida
- Order: Asterales
- Family: Asteraceae
- Genus: Centaurea
- Distilled part: flowers
- Country of origin: Europe
Authorised users
Children under 6 years
Routes of administration
- Oral route: +
- Skin: +++
Scientific properties
- Soothes eye problems
- Tones dry, devitalised skin tissue, astringent
- Refreshes body and mind
Energy Properties
- Irritability, tetchiness, aggression
- Lack of emotional control
Indications
- Conjunctivitis
- Stye
- Tired eyes
- Irritated and dry eyes
- Insect bites
- Minor burns
- Irritated skin
- Canker sores
- Gingivitis
- Hot flushes
Directions for use/usual dosage
- Apply as a compress to closed eyes for 10-15 minutes a day for tired, irritated, dry or congested eyes.
Precautions for use/contraindications
- None known
Cosmetic
- Eye care: tired, irritated eyes (environment, pollution, smoke, TV or computer screens, etc.), dry eyes, congested eyelids, conjunctivitis, etc.
- Facial care: blotchy, dull, irritated skin
Find out more
The cornflower is therefore a messicolous plant. A messicolous plant is any plant that has adapted to human cultivation practices and whose development cycle is based on that of field-grown cereals. Today, these messicolous plants, which are becoming increasingly rare, make up the richness of our flora. They are all the more important because they are in danger of disappearing as a result of modern cultivation methods, to which they are very sensitive, such as seed sorting, mechanical weeding and the use of herbicides.
Additional information
Habitat and botanical description
The cornflower is an annual or biennial messicolous plant that can grow up to 80cm tall, with lanceolate or pennate, hairy, light grey leaves and pretty flower heads, usually deep blue, sometimes purple or white. It flowers from May and for much of the summer. A common plant in cereal fields and some meadows and woodland margins, it prefers slightly acid clayey-sandy soils and likes the sun.
Mythology / History / Anecdotes and traditional virtues
According to Greek mythology, the cornflower takes its botanical name Centaurea from the centaur Chiron, who was wounded by a poisoned arrow and healed by the plant's juice.
In the language of flowers, the cornflower symbolises the modesty and shyness of a budding love affair, but also fidelity. A young girl wishing to marry would wear it in her hair, and a young man looking for his soul mate would decorate his buttonhole with it.
This wild flower was also chosen as the national symbol of remembrance during the First World War, a flower that continued to grow on the battlefields and whose name was given by the Poilus to the young new soldiers who wore the horizon blue uniforms.
Its nickname "spectacle breaker" is attributed to its effectiveness in treating eye problems.