%201.jpg)
Centaurea seridis is a species of perennial herbaceous plant in the genus Centaurea in the family Asteraceae.
It is a rhizomatous herbaceous plant, quite tomentose, with winged stems. The leaves are large (the basal ones exceed 30 cm in length and 5 cm in width), the upper ones are decurrent on the stem. The capitula have a thick spherical involucre (about 3 cm in diameter) whose bracts have more than 5 rigid spines, of equal length, which emerge from the same height and reach more than 5 mm. 1
It is distributed throughout the western Mediterranean basin in grasslands, fields and roads near the coast.
Centaurea seridis was described by Carl Linnaeus and published in Species Plantarum , vol. 2, p. 915 [1] , 1753. 2
Centaurea : generic name that comes from the Greek kentauros , horse-men who knew the properties of medicinal plants.
seridis : epithet
Accepted varieties
Centaurea seridis subsp. bloody (Willd.) Dostál
Centaurea seridis subsp. maritima (Dufour) Dostál
Centaurea seridis subsp. sonchifolia (L.) Greuter
