Amethyst Dream is a perennial cornflower with large, deeply fringed blooms in rich violet-purple, spidery and dramatic against gray-green foliage in late spring and early summer. It forms a spreading clump one to two feet tall that bees and butterflies work heavily.

Give it sun to part sun in ordinary soil; unusually for the front of the border, it also tolerates a damp spot. Cut it back hard after the first flush of flowers to refresh the foliage and often coax a second round of bloom.