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Species Cornflower - Centarea cyanus, plant
Habitat ARABLE FARMLAND
Background and status A slender annual plant up to 60cm tall. Its bright blue-purple flower heads added striking colour to cornfields of old. Sadly, by the end of the 1970s the cornflower had become a nationally-scarce species. It is recently reappearing on unsprayed set-aside land. Flowers June-August. The cornflower was formerly common throughout the country, but its decline has been very rapid. Between 1930 and 1960, this species was recorded in 264 10 km squares, while between 1986 and 1992 it was recorded in only four arable fields in southern England. It occasionally appears on newly-constructed road sides and similar places.
Main Threats The following agricultural changes were largely responsible for the decline of cornflower and are now providing contraints on its recovery:

Increased use of herbicides and fertilisers;

The development of highly competetive crop varieties;

The destruction of field-edge refuges;

The demise of traditional crop rotations;

The conversion of marginal arable land to pasture.
Conservation and targets Research is currently in progress under English Nature’s Recovery Programme. The UK targets are:

Develop and maintain viable populations at all extant native sites where the species is long-established.

Facilitate the natural colonisation of new sites.

Regenerate populations of cornflower from the seed-bank at eight historic sites by 2003.

Establish programme to protect genetic diversity, create a reserve population and provide experimental material.