Mystery plant?

Ever have something come up and have no clue what it is? Should I pull it out? Or leave it and hope it's not some noxious weed? I had this problem last fall. Four plants come up at the end of the long bed. Had no clue what it was but since it was a nice bright green and seemed happy I decided to leave it alone and see what happened.

My best friend have given me a package of wildflower seeds packed into clay balls and I thought perhaps these plants were some of those wildflowers. When these plants survived [and stayed green!] during the winter, with our usual amout of snow fall, I began to worry. What kind of wildflower is green in the snow? Had to be a weed I thought. But something kept me from pull them out. Good thing too!

I think I figured out today that they are Scabiosa (Pincushion) plants. I think [and hope]! I vaguely recall looking at a packet of Scabiosa seeds last fall but don't recall planting them. Which doesn't mean much since I'm a flower nut and forget what I've already planted... which is the main reason I decided to start this blog. [P.S. didn't notice the spider on the blossom until I posted it on the blog. The bugs are already out in force, unfortunately].

Anyway, it looks like the plants have different colored flowers on the same plant. More bang for the buck, which thrills me because I'm not very sucessful with growing plants from seed unless it's a Morning Glory, Hollyhock or Four O'Clock.  The plant's leaves look different from my blue and pink Scabiosa plants, but the flowers look so similar. So far the pink has opened, a white blossom about a 1/5 open and it looks like some will be a deep purple. Looking forward to seeing those blossom.

What do you think? Is it the same plant?

This is a pink pincushion plant I planted in the west side bed two months ago. Pretty but not as showy and vigorous as the blue [which looks more light purple] version. At least not so far.

The blue version, which flourishes happily in the garden beds. I've already divided the plants once this past fall and will do some more dividing in the fall. During the summer the butterflies and bees can't pass these up.

Follow up: My best friend's mum confirmed this is a scabiosa plant. Hopefully it will survive the winter and come back next summer.