- Plants
- ›Vascular Plants
- ›flowering plants
- ›Dicots
- ›Sunflowers, Bellflowers, Fanflowers, and Allies
- ›Sunflowers, Daisies, Asters, and Allies
- ›Thistles and Allies
- ›Cardueae
- ›Knapweeds and Allies
- ›Centaurea
- ›Lopholoma
Greater Knapweed
Centaurea scabiosa
Centaurea scabiosa, or greater knapweed, is a perennial plant of the genus Centaurea. It is native to Europe and bears purple flower heads.
Greater knapweed is found growing in dry grasslands, hedgerows and cliffs on lime-rich soil. Upright branched stems terminate in single thistle-like flowerheads, each having an outer ring of extended, purple-pink "ragged" bracts which form a crown around the central flowers. The plant has deeply dissected leaves which form a clump at the base.
From the article Centaurea scabiosa on Wikipedia (CC BY-SA), quoted section by section
Description
This perennial herb grows with an erect grooved stem up to 90 cm high. The leaves are alternate, pinnatifid and with stalks. The flower heads are 5 cm across and on long stalks. The florets are red-purple.
Range & habitat
Found in Great Britain and Ireland. Native to Europe and Asia. In Europe, it can be found in most regions except Portugal and certain islands, such as Sicily, Corsica, Sardinia, Mallorca, the Greek islands and Iceland. In Asia, it can be found in the Caucasus region and Siberia with the exception of Chukotka and the Magadan Oblast.
Wikipedia: “Distribution”
Where it lives
Recorded sightings
—
geo-referenced records in GBIF, from museums, herbaria and field observers.
Drag the globe to turn it. Dots are where records exist, not a range map; darker means more records.
In the old herbals & bestiaries
In the stacks
Searching the stacks…
Every page naming Centaurea scabiosa in the Biodiversity Heritage Library →
This page is assembled live from iNaturalist, GBIF, Wikipedia, the Source Library and the Internet Archive. It is not yet part of the hand-edited codex. iNaturalist taxon 84344.