Centaurea praecox Oliv. & Hiern

Perennial herb with one to several stems from branched woody rootstock, often flowering from ground level before the leafy branches appear; stems to 50 cm high, hardly branched, thinly pubescent but glabrescent.. Leaves grey-green, subsessile, narrowly elliptic, 3–7 cm long, 0.3–1.4(–6) cm wide, base attenuate or almost wider than the stem, margins entire or with a few small distal teeth, apex acute and mucronate, thinly pubescent becoming scabridulous and glabrescent, densely glandular.. Capitula heterogamous, radiant, often precocious and at ground level (especially in Tanzania), where they are terminal on short stalks to 5 cm long, or solitary and terminal on leafy shoots to 20 cm long; involucre 1.5–2 cm high; phyllaries green with brown tips, ovate to lanceolate, 5–19 mm long, the outermost smallest and with reflexed appendages with 3–7 spines to 7 mm long, the inner with fewer spines and with the appendage pectinate-fimbriate; receptacle with setae 8–13 mm long, flattened and twisted.. Florets exserted, scented; marginal florets with corolla white or pale mauve, in one series, neuter, the tube cylindric, 18 mm long, lobes 5.5–6 mm long, erect, staminodes and ?vestigial style included; inner florets with corolla white or pale mauve, many, tube cylindric, 10–12 mm long, lobes 3.5–5 mm long, spreading or erect, anthers pale purple.. Achenes pale brown, ovoid-cylindric, 7–8 mm long, 4-grooved, sparsely pilose or glabrous; pappus of narrow scale-like setae to 1.5 mm long.. Fig. 15.