Centaurea montana |
|
---|---|
Bachelor's button, centaurée des montagnes, montane starthistle, mountain bluet, mountain bluet knapweed, mountain cornflower, mountain cornflower or bluet, mountain knapweed, perennial cornflower |
|
Habit | Perennials, 25–80 cm, from rhizomes or stolons. |
Stems | 1–several, erect, simple or sparingly branched, villous with septate hairs and thinly arachnoid-tomentose with long, simple hairs. |
Leaves | thinly villous and ± tomentose, glabrate; proximal leaves winged-petiolate, blades 10–30 cm, margins entire or remotely dentate to pinnately lobed; mid and distal leaves sessile, blades decurrent, ovate to oblong or lanceolate, entire or remotely denticulate. |
Involucres | ovoid to ± campanulate, 20–25 mm. |
Florets | 35–60+; sterile florets 10–20, corollas blue (white, purple, or pink), 2.5–4.5 cm, corolla tube elongate. |
Disc florets | 25–40+; corollas purple, ca. 20 mm; anthers dark blue-purple. |
Heads | radiant, borne singly or in few-headed corymbiform arrays; (peduncles to 7 cm). |
Cypselae | ± brown, 5–6 mm, sericeous; pappi of bristles 0.5–1.5 mm. |
Principal | phyllaries: bodies greenish, ovate to lanceolate, scarious-margined, appendages appressed, brown to black, unarmed, decurrent on phyllary margins, pectinate-fringed, puberulent; innermost phyllaries sometimes unappendaged. |
2n | = 24 (Germany), 40 (Russia), 44 (France). |
Centaurea montana |
|
Phenology | Flowering summer (Jun–Aug). |
Habitat | Escaped from cultivation, roadsides, woodlands, sagebrush scrub |
Elevation | 0–1400 m (0–4600 ft) |
Distribution |
AK; ID; ME; MI; MN; MT; NH; NY; OR; PA; UT; WA; WI; BC; NB; NF; ON; QC; SPM; Europe [Introduced in North America]
|
Discussion | Centaurea montana is a very handsome plant, native to the mountains of Europe, now widely cultivated as an ornamental. (Discussion copyrighted by Flora of North America; reprinted with permission.) |
Source | FNA vol. 19, p. 185. |
Parent taxa | Asteraceae > tribe Cardueae > Centaurea |
Sibling taxa | |
Name authority | Linnaeus: Sp. Pl. 2: 911. (1753) |
Web links |