Centaurea

Also known as knapweed, knapweeds

Centaurea () is a genus of over 700 species of herbaceous thistle-like flowering plants in the family Asteraceae. Members of the genus are found only north of the equator, mostly in the Eastern Hemisphere; the Middle East and surrounding regions are particularly species-rich.

OverviewAI-generated

Centaurea is a genus of plants in the family Asteraceae, commonly known as knapweed. It belongs to the order Asterales and the class Magnoliopsida within the phylum Tracheophyta. The scientific name is Centaurea L., and it is distinct from the genus Centaurium. The name derives from the Latin words centum, meaning a hundred, and aureus, meaning golden.

The genus is native to a wide range of locations, including Afghanistan, Albania, Algeria, Altay, Austria, the Azores, Baleares, the Baltic States, Belarus, Belgium, Benin, and Bulgaria. It has been described in sources such as the Brockhaus and Efron Encyclopedic Dictionary and the Encyclopædia Britannica 11th edition. Centaurea is depicted on postage stamps and has an accepted taxonomic status.

Synthesized by Vinony from 50 facts across 9 sources: Wikidata, GBIF, iNaturalist, PubMed, Gbif Occ, Plants of the World, WoRMS, iDigBio, Vinony graph. Generated from structured data (not the Wikipedia text) and checked against those facts — may still contain errors.

Species

Knapweed

Centaurea

GENUS

KingdomPlantae
PhylumTracheophyta
ClassMagnoliopsida
OrderAsterales
FamilyAsteraceae

Native toAfghanistan, Albania, Algeria, Altay, Austria, Azores, Baleares, Baltic States, Belarus, Belgium, Benin, Bulgaria

Observations48,069

Observations recorded2,170,130

General: Centaurea (from Lat. centum, a hundred, aureus, golden).

via GBIF · Kew POWO

Museum specimens

Specimen records: 4,295
With media: 3,579
Family: Asteraceae
Collections: UNIVERSITY OF ALBERTA MUSEUMS, INECOL, IBUNAM, CAS, SJNM, MSC
Recorded in: Canada, Mexico, United States, Armenia, Tunisia, Greece, Italy

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Research

831 papers

Plant Extracts as Skin Care and Therapeutic Agents.ReviewInternational journal of molecular sciences · 2023Michalak MDOI: 10.3390/ijms242015444
The essential oil composition of Centaurea immanuelis-loewii Degen growing wild in Bulgaria and chemotaxonomy of section Acrocentron.ReviewNatural product research · 2022Bancheva S, Badalamenti N, Bruno MDOI: 10.1080/14786419.2021.1931190
Centaurea benedicta-A Potential Source of Nutrients and Bioactive Components.Plants (Basel, Switzerland) · 2024Teneva O, Petkova Z, Dobreva A et al.DOI: 10.3390/plants13243579
Centaurea triumfetii essential oil chemical composition, comparative analysis, and antimicrobial activity of selected compounds.Scientific reports · 2023Carev I, Gelemanović A, Glumac M et al.DOI: 10.1038/s41598-023-34058-2
[Centaurea].Meditsinskaia sestra · 1991Kiseleva TL
Centaurea mersinensis phytochemical composition and multi-dimensional bioactivity properties supported by molecular modeling.Journal of biomolecular structure & dynamics · 2024Yırtıcı Ü, Ergene A, Adem Ş et al.DOI: 10.1080/07391102.2023.2204496
The essential oil composition of the endemic plant species Centaurea vandasii and chemotaxonomy of section Phalolepis (Asteraceae).ReviewNatural product research · 2023Bancheva S, Badalamenti N, Bruno MDOI: 10.1080/14786419.2021.1992627
The introduction of an invasive weed was not followed by the introduction of ethnobotanical knowledge: a review on the ethnobotany of Centaurea solstitialis L. (Asteraceae).ReviewPeerJ · 2023Branco S, Irimia RE, Montesinos DDOI: 10.7717/peerj.15489

via PubMed

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Encyclopedic overview

11 sections

Contents

Common names
Description
Ecology
Use by humans
Systematics and taxonomy
Species
Formerly placed here
Footnotes
References
Further reading
External links

==Common names== Common names for this genus are centaury, centory, starthistles, knapweeds, centaureas and the more ambiguous bluets; a vernacular name used for these plants in parts of England is loggerheads (common knapweed). The Plectocephalus group – possibly a distinct genus – is known as basketflowers. Cornflower is used for a few species, but that term more often specifically means either C. cyanus (the annual cornflower) or Centaurea montana (the perennial cornflower). The common name centaury is sometimes used, although this also refers to the unrelated plant genus Centaurium.

Excerpted from Wikipedia’s “Centaurea” article, available under the CC BY-SA 4.0 licence.