CENTAUREA. 
C. Bourgaei is acutely dwarf, woolly-hoary, with foliage very 
finely dissected, close to which, on stalks of 2 or 3 inches, are borne 
the wide and raying blossoms of pale yellow. 
C. cadmea is especially pretty. The tufts of woolly closely-white 
hoary foliage emit a number of branching stems about 6 inches long, 
flopping or flaunting from the cliffs of Cadmus in Caria, and then 
break out in a diffuse shower of purple blooms. 
C. dealbata, a well-known favourite stalwart of 2 feet or so, with 
feathery silver leafage and lonely stars of pink. 
C. glastifolia is much taller, about twice the height, with smaller 
blossoms of bright yellow ; not so worthy. 
C.. granatensis makes a white woolly clump of feathered leaves in 
the limestone cliffs of Granada, and sends up undivided stems of some 
3 to 9 inches, carrying large golden-yellow fluffs. 
C. lactucaefolia, in the same sheer rocks of Saint Elias that shelter 
Campanula hagielia, rises to a foot or 18 inches high, with foliage of a 
foot long; and carries on a stout and almost naked stalk four or five 
big rayless flowers of pale yellow, about 2 inches across, gathered at 
the top into an impressive solid head like a mace. 
C. lanigera in the high places of Cappadocia sends up stems of 3 or 
4 inches, above a tuft of rather woolly foliage, cut into remote scallops, 
and each stem ends in a large starry yellow bloom. 
C. lycia is exactly as C. cadmea, but with basal leaves undivided. 
C. macrocephala, a border giant of 5 feet, stout-stemmed and with 
green leaves, with fat round rayless heads of yellow. 
C. macrorrhiza clings to the crevices of the Sierra de Maria in 
Almeria, and there forms perfectly tight mounds of pure snow- 
white rosettes packed into a dense hump, in which, hardly emerging 
from their wrapping of wool, sit orange-golden flowers, one or three 
to a shoot, never emerging upon any stalk unless they happen to be 
growing in a rather more shady exposure than the hot cliffs it usually 
affects. This, when obtained, should prove the pearl of the race. 
C. montana is the universal leafy perennial cornflower of the 
alpine meadows,—type of all the Starry-blooms, with radiant long 
florets all round from the central head. It is common in borders, and 
fitted for grassy places in the wild garden, and has varied into 
countless colours all offered in catalogues. 
C. Musarum pursues the Muses upon Parnassus. The Muses have 
long fled from their holy hill; but their Centaurea remains thriving 
on the upper slopes—a very hoary cushion, with many frail dwarf 
stems of 6 inches, each carrying some three or four rayless balls of 
gold. 
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