Jerry's Garden: Exotic beauty

Flower and photo by Jerry Pickard

This is sort of a science fiction kind of flower - like an alien spaceship - something that would float through the air.

Anyone care to identify it?
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Rising to the challenge, reader Lorelei Begalka says that  Jerry Pickard’s flower is Centaurea montana or mountain bluet.

Martin Král adds that they are also called bachelor buttons and cornflowers.

"In Europe," he says, "a full version grows like a weed in grain fields. Bachelor buttons have a long history of symbolic value in European societies - hence their common name. Their blue blossom conveys loyalty and has been adopted by political parties. A perennial, it is also available in a white and now several hybrid versions." 

Colleen Weum agrees. She knows them as Cornflower Mountain Bluet.

Wikipedia notes that "In the past it often grew as a weed in cornfields (in the broad sense of "corn" referring to grains, such as wheat, barley, rye, or oats), hence its name."