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Devil’s bit scabious
Succisa pratensis
51.5717, -9.76728
Field Notes
Description:
Succisa pratensis is a perennial herb up to 1m tall, growing from a basal rosette of simple or distantly-toothed, lanceolate leaves. Its unlobed leaves distinguish it from Knautia arvensis. The plant may be distinguished from Centaurea scabiosa (greater knapweed) by having its leaves in opposite pairs, not alternate as in knapweed. The bluish to violet (occasionally pink) flowers are borne in tight compound flower heads or capitula. Individual flowers are tetramerous, with a four-lobed epicalyx and calyx and a four-lobed corolla. Male and female flowers are produced on different flower heads (gynodioecious), the female flower heads being smaller.
Habitat:
In a field on the Sheeps Head Peninsula. Co Cork. South / West Ireland.
Notes:
The third picture is not such a great one but it shows how small it is.
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Devil’s-bit scabious has been used as a dye, a seasoning, tea, and medicinally to treat scabies, eczema, fever, weeping wounds, and even syphilis and plague. According to legend the Devil was not best pleased with the ways that people were using this versatile plant and tried to destroy it by biting the root off, and its vertical rootstock certainly looks like it has been bitten from below as it rots from the tip as it ages. Both its Finnish and Latin names come from succidere, meaning ’to break from the bottom’ or ’to reap’. Devil’s-bit scabious is useful not just to people: as one of summer’s latest-flowering species it is vital to help insects prepare to survive the winter, especially butterflies, but also bees, flower flies and beetles.
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