Centaurea phrygiaL.

wig knapweed

WFO wfo-0000023705 Accepted WFO 2026-06 8 photographs CC0 / CC BY

Plate 1 figs. a–h · 8 separate observations

Centaurea phrygia, photographed by Татьяна Максимова
fig. a Татьяна Максимова, CC BY 4.0 / 2022-03-20 / obs. 184150081
Centaurea phrygia, photographed by Силаева Татьяна Борисовна
fig. b Силаева Татьяна Борисовна, CC0 1.0 / obs. 152160865
Centaurea phrygia, photographed by Элеонора Анатольевна
fig. c Элеонора Анатольевна, CC BY 4.0 / obs. 146574237
Centaurea phrygia, photographed by Kristina Кochariantc
fig. d Kristina Кochariantc, CC BY 4.0 / obs. 144475644
Centaurea phrygia, photographed by Tomas Pocius
fig. e Tomas Pocius, CC0 1.0 / obs. 143700625
Centaurea phrygia, photographed by Иван Шихалев
fig. f Иван Шихалев, CC BY 4.0 / obs. 142878284
Centaurea phrygia, photographed by Dmitriy Bochkov
fig. g Dmitriy Bochkov, CC BY 4.0 / obs. 129572782
Centaurea phrygia, photographed by nina_nesterova
fig. h nina_nesterova, CC BY 4.0 / obs. 88184845

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.

The specimen a real sheet, in a real collection

Herbarium
The New York Botanical Garden
Accession
02715893
Filed as
Centaurea phrygia subsp. pseudophrygia (C.A.Mey.) Gugler
Det. by
not recorded on this sheet
Collected
not recorded
Origin
not recorded
The sheet
View the digitised specimen (CC BY 4.0)

A real pressed plant, in a real collection, under the accession number above. Not an illustration of one. The holding institution does not serve this sheet’s image to third parties, so there is no photograph here. The record is real and the link goes to it. Where we hold no openly licensed sheet for a species this section is simply absent, and where a sheet never recorded who determined it, that field stays empty rather than being filled in. Roughly half of all herbarium sheets never recorded a determiner, which is ordinary.

Native range 30 botanical countries

Regions where Centaurea phrygia is native: Iran, North Caucasus, Transcaucasus, Türkiye, West Siberia, Albania, Austria, Baltic States, Belarus, Bulgaria, Central European Russia, Czechia-Slovakia, Denmark, East European Russia, Finland, Germany, Greece, Hungary, Italy, Krym, North European Russia, Northwest European Russia, Norway, NW. Balkan Pen., Poland, Romania, South European Russia, Switzerland, Türkiye-in-Europe, Ukraine IranNorth CaucasusTranscaucasusTürkiyeWest SiberiaAlbaniaAustriaBaltic StatesBelarusBulgariaCentral European RussiaCzechia-SlovakiaDenmarkEast European RussiaFinlandGermanyGreeceHungaryItalyKrymNorth European RussiaNorthwest European RussiaNorwayNW. Balkan Pen.PolandRomaniaSouth European RussiaSwitzerlandTürkiye-in-EuropeUkraine
Native distribution of Centaurea phrygia, 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
Albania ALB EUROPE
Austria AUT
Baltic States BLT
Belarus BLR
Bulgaria BUL
Central European Russia RUC
Czechia-Slovakia CZE
Denmark DEN
East European Russia RUE
Finland FIN
Germany GER
Greece GRC
Hungary HUN
Italy ITA
Krym KRY
North European Russia RUN
Northwest European Russia RUW
Norway NOR
NW. Balkan Pen. YUG
Poland POL
Romania ROM
South European Russia RUS
Switzerland SWI
Türkiye-in-Europe TUE
Ukraine UKR
Iran IRN ASIA-TEMPERATE
North Caucasus NCS
Transcaucasus TCS
Türkiye TUR
West Siberia WSB

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.

Flowering 257 in flower of 290 examined

Peak flowering in Aug. Each bar is the share of Centaurea phrygia observations in which someone actually recorded the reproductive state and found the plant in flower, not the raw number of flowering records. That distinction matters: people observe plants far more in spring than in winter, so a bare count of flowering records partly measures when people go outside. Dividing by the number examined removes that. 257 of 290 examined observations were in flower, every one of them research grade. The whisker on each bar is a 95% Wilson interval. 7 months have fewer than 5 examined observations, so no proportion is drawn for them. This is still a global aggregate and not a forecast for your garden: the same species flowers on different dates in different hemispheres. Where a species has fewer than 30 flowering records we do not draw this chart at all. Computed from 10.15468/dl.cgje2x.

Where it actually grows measured, from 2,030 observations

Condition 5th percentile Median 95th percentile
Coldest month, mean daily low -16.9 °C -11.1 °C -6.9 °C
Warmest month, mean daily high 18.9 °C 22.5 °C 24.3 °C
Annual rainfall 534 mm 671 mm 1,329 mm
Rainfall in the driest quarter 80 mm 107 mm 213 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 2,030 research-grade observations of Centaurea phrygia 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. Climate from CHELSA V2.1 (Karger et al. 2017); occurrences from 10.15468/dl.cgje2x.

Also published as 57 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 abbreviata (K.Koch) Hand.-Mazz.
  • Centaurea abnormis Czerep.
  • Centaurea alutacea Dobrocz.
  • Centaurea austriaca Willd.
  • Centaurea bosniaca Hayek
  • Centaurea bosniaca Murb
  • Centaurea bulgarica Urum. & J.Wagner
  • Centaurea carpatica (Porcius) Porcius
  • Centaurea cetia J.Wagner
  • Centaurea conglomerata C.A.Mey.
  • Centaurea elatior (Gaud.) Hayek
  • Centaurea indurata Janka
  • Centaurea jacea subsp. razgradiensis (Velen.) Stoj. & Acht.
  • Centaurea melanocalathia Borbás
  • Centaurea moesiaca Urum. & J.Wagner
  • Centaurea nigra subsp. salicifolia (Willd.) Nyman
  • Centaurea nigriceps Dobrocz.
  • Centaurea phrygia subsp. austriaca (Willd.) Gugler
  • Centaurea phrygia subsp. capitata (Koch) Arcang.
  • Centaurea phrygia subsp. nigriceps (Dobrocz.) Dostál
  • Centaurea phrygia subsp. pallida (Koch) Arcang.
  • Centaurea phrygia var. elatior Gaudin
  • Centaurea plumosa var. carpatica Porcius
  • Centaurea pseudophrygia C.A.Mey.

and 33 more.

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. Wikidata. common name (P1843), joined on the World Flora Online identifier (P7715). CC0. Retrieved 2026-07-13.
  4. 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.