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Centaurea L.

Gender composed of more than 730 species, distributed through temperate areas of the northern hemisphere, with the greatest diversity in the Mediterranean region. They are mostly annual or perennial herbaceous plants, with some woody and shrubby species. Plants are unarmed, except for the bracts of the capitula, although the margin of leaves can be spinulose. All species have capitula with all flowers in disc florets, of which frequently the outer florets are sterile, with an involucre formed by several rows of coriaceous bracts, generally with a spiny apical appendage frequently decurrent. Achenes are usually ovoid and pubescent and with lateral-subbasal hilum, with a pappus formed by several rows of scabrid or subplumose setae or scales. In North Africa it is represented by some 70 species, several of them with various subspecies, of which approximately a third are sometimes very localised endemics. They are all herbaceous, except for C. scoparia, a subshrub up to 50 cm in height, typical of the deserts of the E of Egypt and the Near East, and C. debdouensis, a small subshrub up to 30(40) cm in height, from the arid areas of NE Morocco.

Updated by: B. Valdés.