Centaurea solstitialis
species of plant
Centaurea solstitialis, the yellow star-thistle, is a species of thorny plant in the genus Centaurea, which is part of the family Asteraceae. A winter annual, it is native to the Mediterranean Basin region and invasive in many other places. It is also known as golden starthistle, yellow cockspur and St. Barnaby's thistle (or Barnaby thistle).
Description
Centaurea solstitialis is an annual herb from the family Asteraceae. During the vegetative stage it forms a rosette of non-spiny leaves, between 5–20 centimetres (2–8 inches) in diameter. As the summer approaches, it produces a flowering stem up to 1 metre (3+1⁄2 feet) in height. The leaves at the base are lobed and range between 5–8 cm (2–3 in) in length, while the ones on the stem are unlobed and smaller. Between May and October, the stem produces numerous spinous flower heads (capitula) about 12–16 millimetres (1⁄2–5⁄8 in) across, containing between 10 and 50 yellow flowers, with spines between 1–2.5 cm (3⁄8–1 in). Flowers within capitula are pollinated by insects and each capitula produces 10–50 seeds, some with and some without a pappus.
The public source identifies “Centaurea solstitialis” as species of plant. This brief keeps that definition visible, then builds a research path around Centaurea, solstitialis and species.
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This entry incorporates text from “Centaurea solstitialis” on English Wikipedia. Contributors are listed in the page history. Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License. Selected authority identifiers and statements are retrieved from Wikidata under CC0; their references and qualifiers remain part of the verification path.