Sweet scabious
Scabiosa atropurpurea L.
- light
- Full sun
- water
- Medium
- tall
- 76 cm
- wide
- 27 cm
Caprifoliaceae
Also called Annual Scabious, Sweet Scabiosa, Mediterranean sweet scabious, Mournful widow, Mourning bride
Formerly Asterocephalus atropurpureus, Columbaria atropurpurea, Cyrtostemma atropurpureum, Sixalix atropurpurea, and 1 more
When it flowers
Not known yet in the tropics: too few flowering observations to read a season from.
Read from iNaturalist photographs of it in flower. A month counts at 50% of the best month's flowering share (smoothed over three months) and 10% of its flowering count, from at least 100 flowering observations in the band.
If a child, a pet or anyone may have eaten a plant, contact a doctor or vet straight away, or call the National Poisons Information Centre (AIIMS, New Delhi) on 1800 116 117, free and open 24 hours.
Something wrong with it?About it
- Grows as
- BiennialKew's checklist, not yet checked
- Climate
- TemperateKew's checklist, not yet checked
- Wild in
- Azores, S. EuropeKew's checklist, not yet checked
- Light
- Full sun (6 h or more)Read from NC State Extension, one source
- Height
- 61 cm to 91 cmRead from NC State Extension, one source
- Spread
- 23 cm to 30 cmRead from NC State Extension, one source
- Water
- Average: moist, well drainedRead from NC State Extension, one source
- Flowers
- White, yellow, red, pink, purple, blueRead from NC State Extension, one source
Not known yet: coldest it survives, heat, hottest it survives.
In other languages (12)
- Portuguese
- Suspiros-roxos-dos-jardins, Escabiosa-dos-jardins, Saudades-roxas
- Catalan
- Herba del sucre, vídues
- French
- Scabieuse pourpre, Scabieuse pourpre noir, Scabieuse pourpre foncé
- German
- Samt-Skabiose
- Czech
- hlaváč tmavonachový
- Spanish
- escobilla morisca
- Italian
- Vedovina marittima
- Japanese
- セイヨウマツムシソウ
- Estonian
- hurmeline tähtpea
- Swedish
- praktvädd
- Russian
- Сиксаликс черно-пурпуровый
- Chinese (China)
- 紫盆花
Where this comes from
- iNaturalist, read 2026-10-25, CC0-1.0 (observation counts)
- Wikidata, read 2026-10-25, CC0-1.0
- Kew's checklist, read 2026-10-24, CC-BY-4.0
- NC State Extension, read 2026-10-25, fact, cited
- Wikimedia Commons, read 2026-10-25, Public domain
- iNaturalist, read 2026-10-25, CC BY
- iNaturalist, read 2026-10-25, CC BY
- iNaturalist, read 2026-10-25, CC BY
- 3D model: Scabiosa atropurpurea (built for Vanagrha) by Vanagrha, own
A fact “checked by a majority of its sources” was settled by a vote of the pages it was read from, not by a person reading it; one marked “one source” rests on that page alone. Anything else not marked checked has not been checked yet. Where nothing is known, the page says so rather than guess.