Centaurea benedicta (L.) L. / Homotypic Synonyms: Cnicus benedictus L., it is an annual up to 100 cm. Stem; erect to wide-spreading, generally branched throughout, not winged, loosely to densely tomentose, with long, crinkled hairs and finer, cobwebby hairs. Leaf; becoming ± glabrous, resin-dotted; basal and proximal cauline 10-20 cm, wing-petioled, oblanceolate to elliptic, coarsely lobed, dentate, teeth and lobes weakly spine-tipped; distal cauline sessile, not much reduced. Inflorescence; heads disc form, 1-few, sessile or subsessile, often closely subtended by involucre-like set of wide, leaf-like bracts; involucre 20-40 mm, ovoid or spheric; main phyllaries ± green or straw-colored, outer tightly appressed with spreading spine tips, inner with pinnately divided, generally purple or straw-colored spine tips. Flower; many, corolla yellow; sterile flower corolla disk; disk flower corolla 19-24 mm. Fruit; 8-11 mm, straw colored, 20-ribbed, tipped with a 10-toothed rim, glabrous; pappus of 2 series of awns, outer 9-10 mm, inner 2-5 mm..,
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