Centaurium erythraeaRafn

Common centaury

WFO wfo-0000593916 Accepted WFO 2026-06 8 photographs CC0 / CC BY

Plate 1 figs. a–h

Centaurium erythraea, photographed by Rosalie Lawrence
fig. a Rosalie Lawrence, CC BY 4.0 / 2022-05-01 / obs. 192710854
Centaurium erythraea, photographed by Tyler Bishop
fig. b Tyler Bishop, CC BY 4.0 / obs. 197547095
Centaurium erythraea, photographed by Arnim Littek
fig. c Arnim Littek, CC BY 4.0 / obs. 198303207
Centaurium erythraea, photographed by Chris Taklis
fig. d Chris Taklis, CC BY 4.0 / obs. 203848723
Centaurium erythraea, photographed by Tyler Bishop
fig. e Tyler Bishop, CC BY 4.0 / obs. 197631030
Centaurium erythraea, photographed by Hayden Jones
fig. f Hayden Jones, CC BY 4.0 / obs. 188231701
Centaurium erythraea, photographed by Penelope Noel Gillette
fig. g Penelope Noel Gillette, CC BY 4.0 / obs. 182735020
Centaurium erythraea, photographed by Leon Perrie
fig. h Leon Perrie, CC BY 4.0 / obs. 191537600

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 = 2,505 observations

Peak flowering in Jul, from 2,505 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 136 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.

  • Centaurella dichotoma Delarbre
  • Centaurium capitatum (Willd.) Borbás
  • Centaurium centaurium (L.) W.Wight ex Piper
  • Centaurium corymbosum (Dulac) Druce
  • Centaurium divaricatum P.Monts.
  • Centaurium enclusense O.Bolòs, Molin. & P.Monts.
  • Centaurium erythraea subsp. austriacum (Ronniger ex Fritsch) Kožuharov & Petrova
  • Centaurium erythraea subsp. austriacum (Ronniger ex Fritsch) Kožuharov & A.V.Petrova
  • Centaurium erythraea subsp. bifrons (Pau) Greuter
  • Centaurium erythraea subsp. boissieri (Willk.) Z.Díaz
  • Centaurium erythraea var. capitatum (Willd.) Melderis
  • Centaurium erythraea var. fasciculare (Duby) Ubsdell
  • Centaurium erythraea var. grandiflorum (Griseb.) Galiano & Valdés
  • Centaurium erythraea var. latifolium (Sm.) T.C.G.Rich
  • Centaurium erythraea var. laxum (Boiss.) Mouterde ex Charpin & Greuter
  • Centaurium erythraea var. limoniiforme (Greuter) Melderis
  • Centaurium erythraea var. majus (Hoffmanns. & Link) O.Bolòs & Vigo
  • Centaurium erythraea var. masclansii O.Bolòs & Vigo
  • Centaurium erythraea var. rumelica (Velen.) Kožuharov & A.V.Petrova
  • Centaurium erythraea var. rumelicum (Vel.) Kožuharov & Petrova
  • Centaurium erythraea var. sanguineum (Mabille) Greuter
  • Centaurium erythraea var. subcapitatum (Corb.) Ubsdell
  • Centaurium erythraea var. sublitorale (Wheldon & Salmon) Ubsdell
  • Centaurium graciliflorum (Pomel) Druce

and 112 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.

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.