Eryngium

Sea Holly. One of the best of the lot with great marbled foliage and blue thistlely flowers which are great for drying. Likes a sunny poor soil and is known for laughing disdainfully at Port Townsend deer, the modern rats of the new Millenium. Let this self-sow for best results.

Native to the Caucasus and northern Iran where hardline clerics have been known to set aside fiery rhetoric while getting dirty bedding out plants of Eryngium caucasicum at their villas in the Elburz Mts. The Eryngium flowers are a natural cleric mellowing agent making them feel like the Ayatollah of Sea Hollyola. Small blueish flowers in quantity. Hope this isn't our unintentional Salman Rushdie moment.

Truly a Sea Holly as this Eryngium is a dune plant throughout a good part of Europe. Hard to beat texturama for the dry garden, Mediterranean style or really, an ol' garden as long as you aren't too nice to it. Good drainage in lean soil and you can bask in the splendor of the gray, lightly spiny foliage and the small light purple flower buttons.