Көгілдір Жебегүл (Kögildir Jebegül)

Species of flowering plant

Catananche caerulea, or Cupid's dart, is a greyish green perennial herbaceous plant with a basal leaf rosette and conspicuous blue purple or sometimes white flowerheads, belonging to the daisy family. It is a popular garden plant and is often used in dried flower arrangements. It is native to the Mediterranean region. The flower was supposedly used by the ancient Greeks as a key ingredient in a love potion, hence the common name "Cupid's dart".

Cupid's dart is a short lived perennial herbaceous plant, of 20–90 cm high.

There is a basal rosette of many linear leaves of 2–20 cm long and .25 .75 cm wide, which may be entire or are pinnately incised, creating linear lobes mostly directed towards the tip. The leaves are covered in long soft woolly hairs (pilose) lying on the surface, giving both leaf surfaces a greyish green color. The leaf tips may be blunt or pointy, and the leaf blade gradually narrows to the main vein at the base of the leaf. From the heart of the rosette one or a few, strongly branched, erect, again woolly haired and greyish green flowering stems rise. These stems carry only a few leaves, similar to the basal leaves, but up to 30 cm long, with up to four lateral lobes. and is reflected in the vernacular name Cupid's dart. The species epithet caerulea is the Latin for "(heavenly) blue".

Cupid's dart occurs in the wild in western North Africa (Morocco, Algeria, Tunisia and Libya) and south western Europe (Portugal, Spain including the Balearic Islands, Andorra, France, and Italy). It is naturalized in Czechoslovakia and may temporarily occur elsewhere when it escapes from cultivation.

Catananche caerulea is grown in the garden as an ornamental short lived perennial, which may re seed spontaneously. It prefers full sun with good drainage. It is drought tolerant. Several selections are grown, among which 'Amor Blue', 'Major', with larger flowers, 'Alba' and 'Amor White', white with purple floret tubes. The cultivar C. caerulea 'Major' has gained the Royal Horticultural Society's Award of Garden Merit. (confirmed 2017).