Centaurea cheiranthifoliaWilld.

WFO wfo-0000079733 Accepted WFO 2026-06 8 photographs CC0 / CC BY

Plate 1 figs. a–h · 8 separate observations

Centaurea cheiranthifolia, photographed by Сергей Крыленко
fig. a Сергей Крыленко, CC BY 4.0 / 2020-08-29 / obs. 186800874
Centaurea cheiranthifolia, photographed by Mikhail Nevsky
fig. b Mikhail Nevsky, CC BY 4.0 / obs. 88339830
Centaurea cheiranthifolia, photographed by Dmitriy Bochkov
fig. c Dmitriy Bochkov, CC BY 4.0 / obs. 48854288
Centaurea cheiranthifolia, photographed by Михаил Орлов
fig. d Михаил Орлов, CC BY 4.0 / obs. 49063990
Centaurea cheiranthifolia, photographed by Jacek Pietruszewski
fig. e Jacek Pietruszewski, CC BY 4.0 / obs. 205938270
Centaurea cheiranthifolia, photographed by stn ktn
fig. f stn ktn, CC0 1.0 / obs. 139488213
Centaurea cheiranthifolia, photographed by Andre Hosper
fig. g Andre Hosper, CC BY 4.0 / obs. 10093322
Centaurea cheiranthifolia, photographed by Dmitriy Bochkov
fig. h Dmitriy Bochkov, CC BY 4.0 / obs. 47113307

Every figure is a research-grade observation under CC0, CC BY or CC BY-SA, rehosted with the photographer’s name, the licence and the observation it came from. Photographs under a NonCommercial licence are excluded from this site and are never stored, which costs us a great many pictures and is not negotiable.

Native range 4 botanical countries

Regions where Centaurea cheiranthifolia is native: Iran, North Caucasus, Transcaucasus, Türkiye IranNorth CaucasusTranscaucasusTürkiye
Native distribution of Centaurea cheiranthifolia, after Kew’s World Checklist of Vascular Plants. Introduced, extinct and doubtful records are excluded, so this is where the plant is from, not everywhere it now grows.
RegionTDWG codeContinent
Iran IRN ASIA-TEMPERATE
North Caucasus NCS
Transcaucasus TCS
Türkiye TUR

Region boundaries approximated from Natural Earth (public domain) and mapped to TDWG World Geographical Scheme for Recording Plant Distributions (WGSRPD) level-3 botanical countries (Brummitt 2001). Indicative, not the official WGSRPD geometry.

Where it actually grows measured, from 431 observations

Condition 5th percentile Median 95th percentile
Coldest month, mean daily low -17.7 °C -13.7 °C -10.1 °C
Warmest month, mean daily high 13.0 °C 16.4 °C 20.5 °C
Annual rainfall 830 mm 1,711 mm 3,213 mm
Rainfall in the driest quarter 95 mm 259 mm 598 mm

It is found where winters are severely cold. This is not care advice and it is not a forecast. It is a measurement: we sampled the climate at every one of the 431 research-grade observations of Centaurea cheiranthifolia that carry a coordinate, and this is the range those places actually span. The 5th and 95th percentiles are used rather than the minimum and maximum, because a single cultivated specimen in a heated conservatory should not widen a tropical plant's range to the Arctic.

This is not a hardiness zone. A USDA zone is the average annual extreme minimum temperature. The figure above is the mean daily minimum of the coldest month, which is a different quantity and is typically far warmer. Reading one as the other would place a plant several zones too warm, so we do not publish a hardiness zone, because we do not have one.

Also published as 14 synonyms

A synonym is not an error. It is a record of botanists disagreeing, in print, about where this plant belongs. Each of these was somebody’s considered answer.

  • Centaurea axillaris var. ochroleuca (Puschk. ex Willd.) Boiss.
  • Centaurea cheiranthifolia var. purpurascens (DC.) Wagenitz
  • Centaurea fischeri subsp. cheiranthifolia (Willd.) Sosn.
  • Centaurea fischeri subsp. fischeri
  • Centaurea fischeri subsp. ochroleuca (Puschk. ex Willd.) Sosn.
  • Centaurea fischeri var. fischeri
  • Centaurea fischeri var. purpurea (Sosn.) Grossh.
  • Centaurea montana var. purpurascens DC.
  • Centaurea willdenowii Czerep.
  • Cyanus cheiranthifolius (Willd.) Soják
  • Cyanus cheiranthifolius subsp. cheiranthifolius
  • Cyanus cheiranthifolius subsp. willdenowii (Czerep.) Greuter
  • Cyanus fischeri (Willd.) Soják
  • Cyanus willdenowii (Czerep.) Soják

Sourcesevery claim on this page

  1. World Flora Online Plant List. accepted name, authority, classification. CC0. Retrieved 2026-07-12.
  2. iNaturalist. photographs and flowering annotations, CC0 / CC BY / CC BY-SA only. per photograph. Retrieved 2026-06-27.
  3. Kew, World Checklist of Vascular Plants (WCVP v16). native distribution by TDWG level-3 botanical country, and life form. CC BY 3.0. Retrieved 2026-06-04.

We publish what we can source and we say so when we cannot. This page has no care advice and no toxicity claim, because we do not yet have those from a source we can cite.