Large silky white saucers, about three centimetres across, each with a dark scarlet eye at the centre. It is a simple flower and the contrast does all the work; a drift of them reads as a white carpet flecked with red from right across a garden.
Like the perennial flax, each flower lasts a single day, opening in the morning and gone by evening, replaced by a fresh flush the next morning. That runs from June through September, so the display is continuous even though nothing on the plant is more than a day old.
It is one of the easiest hardy annuals there is, but only if you sow it where it is to grow. It resents transplanting and a moved plant sulks. Direct sow March to May, or in September for stronger, earlier plants the following year, and thin to about 20 or 25cm. Grow it in a group: at 30 to 45cm the plants are open and airy and a single one looks like very little, while twenty together is where the effect is. Lean, well-drained soil in full sun. If you cut it, cut in tight bud and let it open in water.
