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CENTAUREA BENEDICTA. 
Blessed Thistle.* 
Class Syngenesia. — Order Polygamia Frustranea. 
Nat. Ord. Composite Capitate, Linn. 
ClNAROCEPHAL^, Juss, 
Gen. Char. Receptacle bristly. Seed-down simple. Corolla 
of the ray funnel-shaped, dilated, irregular. 
Spec. Char. Capsules doubly spinous, woolly, involucred. 
Leaves semi-decurrent, toothed, spiny. 
This species of Centaury is an annual plant, a native of the 
south of Europe, growing spontaneously in Spain, Barbary, and the 
Grecian Islands, flowering from June to September. It has been 
long cultivated in Britain, the first account of which is given by 
Gerarde in his Herbal, in 1597. f It is now to be met with in many 
of our botanical gardens, but is not in general cultivation. The 
specific name (Benedictas) given to this plant, was probably in con- 
sequence of the very extraordinary medicinal virtues it was supposed 
to possess, the ancients beheving it capable of curing the most malig- 
nant diseases, viz. the plague and other contagious fevers,J cancers, 
carious bones, &c. But the blessed or holy thistle of the moderns 
does not appear to possess virtues sufficient to entitle it to retain so 
sacred an appellation. 
The root is cylindrical, branched, of a whitish colour, and fur- 
nished with many slender fibres ; the stem is erect, roundish, chan- 
nelled, rough, and rises to the height of about two feet, and often 
branched towards the top ; the leaves are long, elliptical, rough, 
runcinated, and barbed with sharp points, of a bright green above, 
beneath, whitish and reticulated; the stem leaves are sessile, and in 
some degree decurrent : the lower ones stand upon footstalks ; the 
* Fig. a. represents a scale of the calyx. 6. A single floret, c. The style, d. The 
stamens and anthers, e. a floret, a little magnified, the calyx being removed. 
t The genus Cenlanrea comprises upwards of eighty species, many of which are 
cultivated in our botanic gardens. 
J Matthiol. in Dioscos. p. 697. 
