CLASS XIX, ORDER III.] CENTAUREA. 1099 
disk tubular, five-cleft. Receptacle flat, the scales oblong, membra- 
nous, mostly fringed with fine hairs at the end. Fruit compressed, 
the margin dilated. 
Habitat—Moist banks, thickets, &.; not uncommon. f. Matlock, 
Derbyshire. 
Perennial; flowering in July and August. 
The florets of the disk by cultivation become expanded into ligulate 
corollas, like those of the ray. The whole plant has a somewhat 
pungent flavour, exciting, when masticated, a profuse flow of saliva, 
and the dried leaves powdered and snuffed up the nose excite 
sneezing. The young leaves and stems are often mixed with spring 
salads, to give them a degree of pungency and warmth to the stomach. 
ORDER III. 
POLYGAMIA FRUSTRANEA. 
(florets of the disk perfect and fertile, those of the circumference 
neuter.) 
~— 
GENUS XLVI. CENTAU'REA—Lixy. SKnapweed, Blue-botile. 
Nat. Ord. Composi'Tz. Juss. 
Gen. Cuan. Involucrum imbricated, its scales leafy, membranous, or 
spiny. florets of the circumference longer than those of the 
disk. Receptacle paleaceous, its scales much cut or jagged. 
Pappus hairy, or wauting. Fruit compressed—So named be- 
cause Centaur Chiron cured a wound in his knee, which he 
received from Hercules. 
* Involucre scales with a membranous jagged or fringed margin. 
1. C. ni'gra, Linn. (Fig. 1312.) Black Knapweed. Scales of in- 
volucre ovate lanceolate, with a dark brown or black margin, deeply 
fringed, the teeth capillary, very numerous ; leaves rough, the lower 
angulato-dentate, or sub-lyrate, the upper lanceolate, entire, or 
toothed ; heads with or without a rey; pappus very short, tufted. 
English Botany, t. 278.—English Flora, vol. iii. p. 466.—Hooker, 
British Flora, ed, 4. vol. i. p. 310.—Lindley, Synopsis, p. 155. 
Root somewhat woody, and with long fibres. Stem erect, from one 
to two feet high, branched, angular, furrowed, rough. Leaves dark 
green, rough, with short rigid pubescence, the lower ones petiolated, 
deeply lobed in a lyrate manner, and often toothed, the upper ones 
lanceolate, entire, or somewhat toothed, sessile, and embracing the 
stem, or somewhat decurrent. lowers terminal, solitary, the pedun- 
cles swollen upwards, deeply furrowed, and with several small leaves 
“2G 
