About

Centaurea alba is a species of Centaurea found in the Iberian Peninsula in southern and central Spain and in a small neighbouring area in the interior of Portugal. There are three recognised subspecies, and of one subspecies, the nominate, there are furthermore three varieties.

It has been called pale knapweed in English. Vernacular names which have been recorded for this herb in Castilian Spanish are calcitrapa, cardo estrellado, centaura estrellada, garbanzos del cura, siempre nueva, siempre-nueva, and trapacaballos. Other local recorded names in Spanish are abreojos, abrepuños, amargosa, amargosilla, amargoso, ardolla, arzolla, cardo abrepuños, cardo de la arzolla, marbosilla, margosilla, piropo, planta para hemorroides and raíz de la arzolla. In the Catalan language it is known as raspallera in the Valencian dialect.

Where it grows

It only occurs on the Iberian Peninsula, being found at generally inland sites in central, central-north, central-western y southwestern parts of the Peninsula. In Spain it is found in the provinces of Ávila, Badajoz, Burgos, Cádiz, Cáceres, Ciudad Real, Cuenca, Guadalajara, Huelva, León, Madrid, Salamanca, Sevilla, Segovia, Soria, Toledo, Valladolid, Zaragoza and Zamora. In Portugal it occurs in Beira Baixa and Ribatejo Province. The different subspecies and varieties now recognised are largely not sympatric and have discreet geographical distributions. Two taxa have disjunct distributions, subsp. tartesiana to the south of the main distribution, and var. macrocephala further to the south of that, at the southernmost tip of continental Spain.

Other Centaurea plants

Centaurea acaulis · Akamas centaury · Centaurea ammocyanus · Rough star-thistle · Centaurea atropurpurea · Centaurea behen · Blessed Thistle · Red star-thistle · Karl-Henrikh's Centaury · Dusty miller · Centaurea collina · Centaurea cyanoides