Flora-Fauna

Centaurea calcitrapa L.

(Nouvelle Flore du Liban et de la Syrie, vol. 3, Pl. CCCIII nº 1; 1983)

• Life-form & habit: Erect, divaricately branched annual, 40–60 cm tall.

• Leaves: Soft, papillose-pubescent; basal leaves in a rosette, dentate to pinnatisect with winged rachis and mucronate lobes. Cauline leaves sessile, with fewer lobes; uppermost leaves entire.

• Inflorescence & flowers: Lateral and terminal capitula solitary, subsessile or shortly pedunculate.

• Involucre: Ovoid-conical, 12–15 mm long, 5–7 mm wide excluding spines.

• Bracts: Glabrous, pale, leathery, with narrowly membranous margins; middle bracts with a long spreading spiniform appendix (10–20 mm) bearing 2–3 pairs of short lateral spines (2–3 mm). Inner bracts scarious, without spines.

• Flowers: Pink.

• Fruit: Small achenes, 3–4 mm long, glabrous, lacking a pappus.

• Phenology: Flowers from May to July.

• Habitat & elevation: Roadsides, fallow ground.

• Lebanese distribution:
  Ct.: Very localised in Furn-el-Chebak, near Tripoli, and ‘Aqbet-el-Loz
  Ve.: Zahlé

• Syrian distribution: N of Tartous, Slenfé, Jabal Mattai

• Native range: Albania, Algeria, Austria, Baleares, Baltic States, Bulgaria, Canary Is., Cape Verde, Corse, Cyprus, Czechia-Slovakia, East Aegean Is., Egypt, Greece, Hungary, Iran, Italy, Kriti, Krym, Lebanon-Syria, Madeira, Morocco, NW. Balkan Pen., Portugal, Romania, Sardegna, Saudi Arabia, Sicilia, Sinai, Spain, Sudan-South Sudan, Tunisia, Türkey, Türkey-in-Europe, Ukraine. (KEW) 

• Introduced into: Alabama, Arizona, Belgium, California, Cape Provinces, District of Columbia, Florida, France, Free State, Georgia, Germany, Great Britain, Illinois, India, Iowa, Ireland, Maryland, Massachusetts, Netherlands, New Jersey, New Mexico, New York, Norway, Ontario, Oregon, Pakistan, Pennsylvania, Poland, South Australia, Switzerland, Tasmania, Uruguay, Utah, Victoria, Virginia, Washington, West Himalaya. (KEW)