Common knapweed ( Centaurea nigra )

No walk to the bins blip as the guests had emptied the indoor bins and taken the "Dustbin" bag to the bins.  Fortunately this year our "Wildflower meadow" is starting to look like a wildflower meadow.  There is still a long way to go before it looks WOW!  However the number and variety of flowers is increasing.

Knapweed is an important plant for all kinds of pollinators.  It is particularly popular with Common Blue, Marbled white and Meadow Brown butterflies.  It is such a good spreader that in North America it is classed as an invasive plant.  It looks like a thistle but isn't.  it belongs to a Genus of over 700 species found only north of the equator.