CENTAUREA CALCITRAPA subsp. CALCITRAPA

Family:- COMPOSITAE/Subgen. CALCITRAPA

Common Name:- Red star-thistle

Synonyms:- None

Meaning:- Centaurea (Gr) Centaur, Centauros. The centaur Chiron was cured of a

hoof wound with this plant.

Calcitrapa (L) Caltrop, Old English, calcatrippe, for plants catching on

one's feet.

General description:- Short to tall, much-branched, almost hairless, spreading

perennial.

Stems:-

1) 20-100 cm, ascending to erect, divaricately branched from the base.

Leaves:-

1) Young, leaves grey-lanate, becoming greenish and crispate-pubescent,

glandular.

2) Lower pinnatifid, with lanceolate, acute, remotely serrate lobes, withered at

anthesis.

3) Upper pinnatifid, with linear-lanceolate segments.

4) Uppermost lanceolate or somewhat hastate.

Flowers:-

1) Capitula sessile, surrounded by the upper leaves.

2) Involucre, 6-8 mm in diam, ovoid-cylindrical.

3) Bracts, coriaceous, ovate, indistinctly veined, with a scarious margin;

appendages with slender, patent apical spines 10-18 mm, strongly thickened

at the base, and usually 1-3 basal spines 3-5 mm.

4) Florets pale purple, glandular, equal.

Fruit:-

1) Achenes c. 3 mm.

2) Pappus absent.

Key features:-

1) Young leaves lanate.

2) Involucre 6-8 mm diam.

Click here for a glossary of terms used.

Habitat:- Roadsides, field margins, dry grassland and wasteground, generally 0-500

m. (occasionally to 1200 m.).

Distribution:- Throughout mainland Greece, Peloponnisos and Ionian Islands and

Mediterranean area casual elsewhere. Fairly scattered across Crete.

Flowering time:- May-Aug.

Photos by:- Steve Lenton