unable to identify this plant
Hi , I have a 4 year old smallish wildflower meadow and have come across this plant which no amount of searching websites and books has left me any the wiser as to what it is .When I first spotted it in early Sept this year I thought it was probably one of the Umbellifers who's seeds I had recently sown but as you can see it's flowers which are opening now despite the cold are Purple and not White , the stems are somewhat lax and there are pale reddish blotches on the stems , any ideas
anyone ?.
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It's Phacelia tanacetilfolia, a wildflower largely cultivated for its attraction to bees. Not lucky in the last attempt to grow them (a few years ago), but gonna give it a try, it is very pretty (yours too!).
Thank you ever so much DimWit , you have got it in one , I have never sown Phacelia seeds and it's strange because there are possibly 3 or 4 more much smaller plants nearby and also I have never sown Comfrey ( a relative apparently ) and I have several young Comfrey plants also nearby one of which is carrying flower buds , something ( or someone) has been at work in my meadow it seems .I try to keep the meadow as much as possible a minimum of 90% native British plants with just one or 2 foreigners let in but I like this plant and everything I have just read about it so this one is going to stay .
It's been growing wild in the UK since its introduction in the 1800s and is contained in many wildflower mixes ... perhaps that's how it arrived.
Gardening in Central Norfolk on improved gritty moraine over chalk ... free-draining.
I never use Wildlower mixes as i'm interested in the individual species and their qualities as both flowers and herbs and also medicines and food so i'm guessing that the seeds may have arrived as contamination of other seeds , whichever way they arrived though they are most welcome as Phacelia would appear to be a splendid plant .