Greater Burnet is a perennial of damp, reasonably fertile meadows and floodplains. This plant used to be fairly common in the North and north Midlands. Now it is no longer seen very often, perhaps because of farmland drainage and improvement. It spreads by creeping rhizomes and will make quite large clumps. The soft green, divided leaves, looking a bit like Mountain Ash or Rowan, die back in the winter. The flowers are tightly packed, small purple-red heads and are produced on waving stems, approx 60cm tall, in June until the autumn. Apparently people in the Lake District used the flowers to make a wine, to treat nosebleeds, burns and insect bites. The rare Large Blue Butterfly possibly uses Greater Burnet as a food source.
Salad Burnet is similar but smaller and at home on chalky poor soils
Sow any time of year, spring or autumn and would benefit from a period mixed with damp sand, in a fridge, for 3 or 4 weeks(a pre-chill) before sowing.