CENTAUREA 3O5 



A small form with one or two sub-sessile anthodes occurred on the 

 downs near West Ilsley in the dry summer of 1895, but most likely 

 is only a state educed by extreme dryness and wind, and probably 

 related to, if not identical with, S. pygmaea, Lois, Not. PI. de France, 

 125, but is not the same as the Cornish plant figured on Syme, E. B. 

 t. 704, bis. 



S. tinctoria is recorded for all the bordering counties. 



CENTAUREA, Linn. Gen. n. 880. 

 C. nigra, Linn. Sp. PI. 911 (1753). Knapiveed, Matfellon. 



C. Jacea, Huds. Fl. Angl. 326, not of Linn. Jacea nigra, Gerard, 588. 

 Top. Bot. 247. Syme, E. B. v. 31, t. 706. Nyman, 421. Fl. Oxf. 176. 

 Native. Pascual, Meadows, heaths, pastures, chalk downs, railway- 

 banks, &c. Common and generally distributed. P. May-Oct. 

 First record. Sonning, Mr. S. Rudge, in Herb. Brit. Mus. 1800. C. nigra, 

 Dr. Noehden, Mavor's Agr. Berks, 1809. (In the Journ. Bot. (1873) 

 139, Mr. Britten refers the Sonning plant to the var. decipiens.) 



The aggregate species is one of the common plants of Berkshire, 

 being found in every rural parish. It exists under several modifica- 

 tions, of which the chief are the radiate form, and the one in which 

 the anthode consists entirely of tubular florets : the latter is usually 

 considered to be the typical plant in Britain ; in its extreme form it 

 is non-radiant ; the peduncles are much thickened under the anthodes, 

 and the phyllaries are concealed by densely imbricated black appendages 

 which have very long cilia. This plant occurs in damp meadows in the 

 northern part of the county, and by field-borders on stiff soil, as near 

 Didcot, Hagborno, &c. Occasionally it is found with radiant florets, 

 especiallv in the Thames meadows and in fields in the Pang, Kennet, 

 and Loddon districts. I should refer Mr. Rudge's Sonning specimen 

 in Herb. Brit. Mus. to this form rather than to C. decipiens. 



A form from Ilsley is closely allied to if not identical with 

 C. nemoralis, Jordan, Pugill. PI. Nov. 104. 



Sometimes the phyllaries are much more loosely imbricated than at 

 other times in both of these forms. 



The more frequent plant of chalk downs is one with radiant flowers 

 and with the peduncle less swollen at the apex and with paler brown 

 phyllaries ; this appears to be the 



Var. DECiPiEXS, Bab. Man. Brit. Bot. ed. 5, 188, and Syme, 1. c. 

 (? C. decipiens of Thuill. Fl. Par. ed. 2, 445, of which I have not seen 

 a type specimen). 



Syme says he has seen it from Berkshire, and it has been recorded 

 by the Rev. W. M. Rogers in Journ. Bot. (1887) 342 (and distributed by 

 him through the Bot. JExch. Club from Ilsley in 1887), 'from Langley, 

 Hampstead Norris, Beedon Common, Catmore, Ilsley Downs in great 



X 



