Been growing this plant,  or should I say that it's been growing itself,  ever since my friend in Atsumi Japan, Nagao Matsubayashi,  sent me the seeds almost ten years ago.

It's a bulbous,  hardy biennial that has the softest,  most delicately dissected,  glaucous foliage.

Never a nuisance or a plant that I would consider invasive,  it joyfully self seeds itself.

In the early Spring,  almost overnight,  it produces 8" - 12" stems of the most unusually colored purplish - lavender flowers capped with dark purple tips.  The flowers last for several weeks and have the potential to be used as a cut flower.  They seem to self pollinate themselves and set the shiniest black seeds I've ever seen. The seed pods are equipped with an exploding dispersal mechanism and seem to have a 100 % germination rate.

This is a plant that you only have to buy once as you will have seedlings,  that are indestructibly easy to transplant,  coming up in the surrounding area.