Lange's knapweed
Centaurea langei
Family · Asteraceae · Harmless
The purple knapweed of the northwestern Peninsula, without stiff spines, its heads bearing bracts that end in a fringe of brown hairs like an eyelash.
Scrubland · Roadsides and waste ground · Uplands · Fields and pasture
Also known asnorthwestern knapweed
How to tell it
A branched plant half a metre to a metre, its leaves divided into narrow segments. Heads two to three centimetres, with purple or deep pink florets, the outer ones larger and spreading like rays. The bracts end in a fringe of brown or black hairs, with no stiff spine, and that is what separates it from the star thistles. Iberian endemic.
What it is confused with
Purple knapweed
Centaurea pullata
Both are purple and spineless. Centaurea pullata is low, nearly stemless, with a flat rosette and large heads; this is tall and branched, with smaller heads and a more marked fringe of hairs. Neither pricks.
Open sheet →What it is for
No use. It serves to practise the detail that separates one knapweed from another, which is always in the bracts and never in the flower: a fringe of hairs, a simple spine, or a star of spines.