Centaurea benedicta
(L.) L. Blessed ThistleErect annual to 60 cm high. Basal leaves petiolate, oblong, to 30 cm long, 8 cm wide, pinnatifid, often runcinate, pubescent with stiff multicellular hairs; cauline leaves becoming sessile and smaller upwards, narrowly elliptic in outline, pinnatifid, acute to obtuse. Capitula solitary, subtended and surrounded by involucre-like cluster of foliar bracts, ovoid, 20–40 mm diam.; involucre to c. 20 mm long; intermediate bracts elliptic to lanceolate, villous, with a purple or straw-coloured, rigid, pectinate, spiny terminal appendage to 35 mm long; inner involucral bracts longer with a shorter terminal appendage. Corolla 19–24 mm long, yellow. Cypselas 8–11 mm long, brown, with 20 prominent ribs; apex with a ring of 10 broad teeth; pappus of unequal bristles to 10 mm long. Flowering spring–summer.
Native to the Mediterranean region and Asia Minor. In Victoria known from five collections made over 100 years ago in the north-east around Chiltern, Wangaratta and Myrtleford.
