Pretty picture: Scabiosa columbaria 'Butterfly Blue'

Another perennial flower I don't know much about. The color doesn't do much for me, but it's fairly complicated, which makes it sort of interesting. Not a big fan of the botanical name: anything that begins with "scabby" (even if you pronounce it with a long A) isn't going to sound all that beautiful. Scabirenia, Scabiella, Scabionia, Scabianthus, Scabidendron -- the only one of those that even comes close to sounding pretty is Scabiella, and even that sounds more like some kind of latex-clad comic book super-villainess ("Madame Scabiella! The test monkeys have escaped into the city!" "Quickly, Clot Girl! To the Scabmobile!") than a pretty flower.

Not that the names should have to all sound pretty, I guess. But it seems like we could save the ugly-sounding names for the stuff we don't like, and I'm assuming that there are people out there who like Scabiosa. This is one situation where I won't mind people using the common name ("pincushion flower") instead.