A blue fritillary!

This flower started off as  the white form of the snake's head fritillary Fritillaria meleagris, a lily native to Britain.. I left the cut flower overnight in water to which I had added a blue dye and by the morning it had  taken up the dye into its  plumbing system and was transformed into a blue fritillary!

The name fritillary comes from the Latin fritillus meaning a dice-box. Back in 1597 J. Gerard wrote in his herbal that "It hath been called Frittillaria, of the table or boord vpon which men plaie at chesse, which square checkers the flower doth very much resemble, some thinking that the chess-board was named Frittillus." The chess-board pattern is best seen in the normal colour form.

The flower has several other common names including simply snake's head (the original English name), chess flower, frog-cup, guinea-hen flower, leper lily (because its shape resembled the bell once carried by lepers), Lazarus bell, and checkered lily.