Eryngium bithynicum

An Eryngo with somewhat widely-spreading diffuse display of bluish flowers on slender blue branches. The groundmost leaves spread out in a circle and are usually fairly simple or may be 2-3 lobed, and wither by flowering, the leaves above being of a different kind with more complex, broadish, toothier lobing.

It is easily confused with a number of similar Eryngo - each flowerhead is surrounded by 5(6) slender spine-leaves somewhat broadening from tip to base, and within the head each small flower is attended by a 3-part spine; inflorescence stems are strongly channeled and the flowers in a head are not numerous (usually fewer than 15). Photos.

It naturally likes steppe, fallow fields, eroded banks, 100-1400 m, flowering June to September. ^[3]

It is native to Turkey only ^[1]; its distribution in Turkey is the western half, avoiding the southern edge ^[2].