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Is this safe?

Debster

Mama Doe
Anyone know what this is? Finding them all the way through this hay bale. Looks like a dried seed head - are they ok for buns to eat?


 
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To start the ball rolling for you.:lol:
It looks similar to the seed heads of knapweed - centaurea sps to me.
I've never seen them squashed up in hay. When they dry out naturally, they're much more silvery on the inside.
Knapweed is OK but I'm not saying this is knapweed!

Over to better botanists than I am!
ETA there's an image here. https://www.google.co.uk/search?q=k...y.com%2Farchives%2F2005%2F2005_07.htm;540;360 They can open out much further - depends when they're cut.
 
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Thanks Thumps :)

The images of the closed heads on that link look just like what I've found. I've never actually heard of knapweed!
 
Thanks Thumps :)

The images of the closed heads on that link look just like what I've found. I've never actually heard of knapweed!
It's latin name is centaurea.

If you scroll up a bit there's some photos of the flowers which look like purple cornflowers but are a different family. There's also a silvery seed head wide open & looking like a daisy! I'm more used to seeing those.
The dark hairy tips on the "scales" are very typical.
They like very chalky/limey soil.

I wish some one else would post either a confirmation or suggest something else.
When we started foraging & helping people to identify, we'd always get 2 experienced people's thoughts on a photo ID to be ultra safe.

Well done for noticing them. Yep we can get dock stems & buttercups in hay plus a few really odd things:shock:. Whatever happens to be in the field when it's mown!
 
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