Centaurea solstitialisL.

Yellow Star-Thistle

WFO wfo-0000035974 Accepted WFO 2026-06 8 photographs CC0 / CC BY

Plate 1 figs. a–h

Centaurea solstitialis, photographed by Amthinkia
fig. a Amthinkia, CC0 1.0 / 2022-06-10 / obs. 205033957
Centaurea solstitialis, photographed by Peter Brastow
fig. b Peter Brastow, CC BY 4.0 / obs. 202054186
Centaurea solstitialis, photographed by Amthinkia
fig. c Amthinkia, CC0 1.0 / obs. 205034082
Centaurea solstitialis, photographed by saltyhiker
fig. d saltyhiker, CC BY 4.0 / obs. 204862543
Centaurea solstitialis, photographed by Cricket Raspet
fig. e Cricket Raspet, CC BY 4.0 / obs. 204033549
Centaurea solstitialis, photographed by Vasily Reinkymov
fig. f Vasily Reinkymov, CC0 1.0 / obs. 201737881
Centaurea solstitialis, photographed by Dominic Gentilcore
fig. g Dominic Gentilcore, CC BY 4.0 / obs. 202362106
Centaurea solstitialis, photographed by Dominic Gentilcore
fig. h Dominic Gentilcore, CC BY 4.0 / obs. 205029185

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.

Flowering n = 1,680 observations

Peak flowering in Jul, from 1,680 community-annotated observations worldwide. This is a global aggregate, not a forecast for your garden: the same species flowers on different dates in different hemispheres, and citizen-science records cluster near cities, at weekends, and in spring. Where a species has fewer than 30 annotated records we do not draw this chart at all.

Also published as 20 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.

  • Calcitrapa carneola (Boiss.) Holub
  • Calcitrapa erythracantha (Halácsy) Holub
  • Calcitrapa lutea (Gueldenst.) Delarbre
  • Calcitrapa pyracantha (Boiss.) Holub
  • Calcitrapa schouwii (DC.) Holub
  • Calcitrapa solstitialis Lam.
  • Calcitrapa solstitialis subsp. adamii (Willd.) Soják
  • Calcitrapa solstitialis subsp. solstitialis
  • Centaurea carneola Boiss.
  • Centaurea cyanifolia Poir.
  • Centaurea erythracantha Halácsy
  • Centaurea lappacea Ten.
  • Centaurea parvispina Láng ex Gugler
  • Centaurea pseudosolstitialis Debeaux
  • Centaurea pyracantha Boiss.
  • Centaurea schouwii DC.
  • Centaurea sicula subsp. schouwii (DC.) Nyman
  • Centaurea solstitialis var. solstitialis
  • Cyanus solstitialis J.Presl & C.Presl
  • Leucantha solstitialis (L.) Á.Löve & D.Löve

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.

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