This is a perennial Bachelor's Button. Also known as Centaurea montana. It's a tough one! I've never tried to subdivide it, because it's so reliable where it is...I'll bet it would do just fine.
Emily

Yes, and it self-seeds readily so maybe a seed blew in from a neighbor. Woodchucks love them. A pretty, true-blue flower.

just wanted to add that if you cut it back after this flowering it will rebloom just as nice in the fall

I have a few of these. I love them. They divide very easily There is now a white version with a blue center. I think it is by Blooms of Bressingham.

Here is a link that might be useful: Blooms of Bressinghham White centurea montana

I'm not convinced this is "batchelor's button" (as I understand the term), but it certainly is in the genus Centaurea.

york rose,
The perennial bachelor's button is the nickname. It doesn't look like the typical annual ones.

Emily

Here is a link that might be useful: Perennial Bachelor's Buttons

Bachelor's Button can be misleading because it is nickname to both perennials (in this case, what you have pictured), and several different annuals (just do a google search and you will see all sorts of plants).

Anyway, this year I have sevral dozen of them coming up from windblown seed. The original 2 plants have been in place 4 years and are already starting to bloom. I find that deadheading gives me continuous blooms.

I wonder where the term "bachelor button" came from? I mean, we can all understand where the term lady slippers came from as they look like a pair of slippers, same thing can be said for ladies mantle, (a cloak) but who can provide the answer to the mystery bachelor buttons??

All you learned and erudite folks, here's your chance to show off! lol

I guess the bachelor's buttons I'm familiar with must be the annuals -- much more compact flowers, taller stalk, ... But several photos I've seen now, including that link from Denver Plants, look to be perfect matches.

With wildflowers like this drifting in on the breeze, who needs to buy plants? :-)

Wish I could return the favor by offering the origin of the nickname, debra, but I haven't turned up anything yet.

Bachelor's buttons is a common name given to quite a number of flowers, including both annual and perennial Centaurea species. A small book could probably be written on the term. You may be sorry you asked--!--but here is a lengthy but interesting quotation from "The Plant-Lore and Garden-Craft of Shakespeare", written by the very erudite Canon Henry N. Ellacombe, Oriel College, Oxford. I have a reprint of the 1884 edition.

Canon Ellacombe begins with a quotation from "The Merry Wives of Windsor", referring to a young bachelor carrying "buttons". Then he quotes another authority: "...the supposed allusion is to a rustic divination by means of the flowers, carried in the pocket by men and under the apron by women, as [the flower] was supposed to retain or lose its freshness according to the good or bad success of the bearer's amatory prospects."

Canon Ellacombe continues in his own words: "The true Bachelor's Button of the present day [19c] is the double Ranunculus acris, but the name is applied very loosely to almost any small double globular flowers. In Shakespeare's time [late 16c-early 17c], it was probably applied still more loosely to any flowers in bud (according to the derivation from the French 'bouton'). Button is frequently so applied by the old writers [example]...and by Shakespeare [example].

It's interesting that he doesn't mention any Centaurea at all. He was quite a gardener so he would certainly have known Centaureas.

I should add that I have been searching for the double Ranunculus acris for several years. It was an extremely popular old perennial, also called Sailor's Buttons. There's an interesting thread about it on the Perennials forum.

Closer to home, Alice Morse Earle, who was from Massachusetts, wrote the following in "Old Time Gardens" in 1901, also since reprinted:

"[Some say the bluest flower is] Centaurea cyanus or Bachelor's Buttons, a local American name for them, which is not even a standard folk name, since there are twenty-one English plants called Bachelor's Buttons. Ragged Sailor is another American name. Corn-flower, Blue-tops, Bluebonnets, Bluebottles, Loggerheads are old English names [for Centaurea]. Queerer still is the title Break-your-spectacles. Hawdods is the oldest name of all."

If you imagine a small circle of glass, shattered from the center outwards, you can envision how the name break-your-spectacles came about. Plant lore is endlessly interesting.

Well, ginny12, I think that's just fascinating stuff! Thanks for putting forth the effort to write it all out for us.
Emily

Ginny,
Fascinating. Well, break my specs! You ole hawdod! hI truly enjoyed that very well-written explantion and appreciate the time and trouble it took to post. Thank you very much. So, the French "BOUTON" I assume that means button. I know the word, "boutonnier" (sp) from the carnations/roses we pin on our men at weddings and proms.

I cracked up at the description of "RUSTIC AMATORY DIVINATION BY MEANS OF HIDDEN FLOWERS..." Cute. Kind of like the adage of a young unmarried woman--if you sleep on a piece of wedding cake, on the third night you will dream of the man you're going to marry. Or, the one we read about in Little Women, an apple peeling in one long continuous peel, when tossed over your shoulder will form the first initial of your true love's name.

Charming. Thinking of the one we love, before we even meet them! Gives me a good feeling, and I can't tell you why!

You are welcome! It was fun to look it up and I'm glad you two found the information interesting too. But I'm really curious about that word hawdod. It's not in any of my dictionaries. I wonder if it is related to hawthorne. Will have to check out the Oxford English Dictionary at the library some time.

Hmmm. Wedding cake would never make it three nights under my pillow. I'd be up at midnight the first night to eat it. Guess I should consider myself lucky to be married at all.

Hmm, I keep hostess cupcakes under my bed, to hide them from my kids (wrapped, of course, lol!). Is that the same as cake under the pillow?

Thanks ginny - as someone who loves the history of words and phrases, I enjoyed your post. Break-your-spectacles, huh? What fun!

:)
Dee