Cerinthe major purpurascens

Give a thrill to someone who claims they kill everything. Cerinthe major purpurascens is insanely easy to grow and flowers like crazy, producing mesmerizing multi-color blooms that are almost hard to describe. Nodding purple-blue bracts and tubular flowers shift through smoky, silvery, and violet tones above handsome blue-green foliage.

Also known as Honeywort, Blue Shrimp Plant, or Cerinthe, this unusual annual is fabulous in cottage gardens, cutting gardens, pollinator plantings, containers, and meadow-style borders. Bees adore the nectar-rich flowers, while gardeners love the succulent-looking foliage and elegant, self-sown charm. It pairs beautifully with poppies, bachelor buttons, calendula, sweet peas, grasses, and other cool-season annuals, adding a moody metallic note to soft garden color schemes.

Plant Cerinthe major purpurascens in full sun to part shade with well-drained soil. It is easy, forgiving, and likely to self-sow where happy, returning with more magical blooms in future seasons. Cut stems for quirky, beautiful arrangements or let them feed the bees. Explore more easy seasonal favorites in our Annuals collection.

We guarantee that the plants we sell are healthy and viable at the time they leave our care.

If a plant arrives in substandard condition, please take clear photographs and contact us within 48 hours of delivery. To ensure eligibility under this guarantee, we strongly encourage you to open and unpack your shipment immediately upon delivery and inspect the plants thoroughly.

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Standard live-plant shipping to eligible destinations is $16.99 for 1–6 plants, $22.99 for 7–12, $28.99 for 13–18, $34.99 for 19–24, and $40.99 for 25–30. For 31 or more plants, shipping is 20% of the order value. Expedited shipping is priced separately at checkout.

(AL, CT, DC, DE, FL, GA, IN, KY, ME, MD, MA, MI, NH, NJ, NY, NC, OH, PA, RI, SC, TN, VT, VA, WV)
(list of states subject to change seasonally due to extreme heat or cold conditions)

We cannot ship Annie's Annuals plants to P.O. boxes or outside the continental U.S.

Individual plants are shipped in 4" pots and we ship in boxes of 4, 6, 8, or 12 plants per box.

For more details, read our full Ordering and Shipping Policies

Get your plants off to a strong start with our care guide.

Download the Plant Care Guide (PDF)