Search Field Guide
Advanced Search
MT Gov Logo
Montana Field Guide

Montana Field Guides

Great Starthistle - Centaurea scabiosa
Other Names:  Greater Knapweed

Image Copyright and Usage Information
Non-native Species

Global Rank: GNR
State Rank: SNA
C-value: 1


Agency Status
USFWS:
USFS:
BLM:


 

External Links

 
General Description
Perennial. Stems erect, branched, 30–100 cm. Herbage glabrate. Leaves petiolate; blades lanceolate to ovate, 5–25 cm long, pinnately lobed, more deeply so above. Inflorescence with few heads. Involucres broadly campanulate, 12–25 mm high; phyllaries green with dark, scarious, pectinately branched appendages at the tip; the outer ovate; inner oblanceolate. Disk flowers numerous, rose-purple; the outer enlarged; inner corollas 20–25 mm long. Achenes 4–5 mm long, puberulent; pappus of numerous bristles (Lesica et al. 2012. Manual of Montana Vascular Plants. BRIT Press. Fort Worth, TX).

Range Comments
Collected in Missoula and Lewis & Clark counties. Introduced in western and northeast U.S. and Canada (Lesica et al. 2012. Manual of Montana Vascular Plants. BRIT Press. Fort Worth, TX).

Observations in Montana Natural Heritage Program Database
Number of Observations: 6

(Click on the following maps and charts to see full sized version) Map Help and Descriptions
Relative Density

Recency

 

(Observations spanning multiple months or years are excluded from time charts)



Habitat

Ecology
POLLINATORS
The following animal species have been reported as pollinators of this plant species or its genus where their geographic ranges overlap: Bombus vagans, Bombus bifarius, Bombus centralis, Bombus fervidus, Bombus rufocinctus, Bombus ternarius, Bombus terricola, Bombus occidentalis, Bombus griseocollis, Bombus impatiens, Bombus insularis, and Bombus suckleyi (Thorp et al. 1983, Johnson 1986, Colla and Dumesh 2010, Koch et al. 2012, Williams et al. 2014, Tripoldi and Szalanski 2015).

Management

References
  • Literature Cited AboveLegend:   View Online Publication
    • Colla, S.R. and S. Dumesh. 2010. The bumble bees of southern Ontario: notes on natural history and distribution. Journal of the Entomological Society of Ontario 141:39-68.
    • Flora of North America Editorial Committee. 2006. Flora of North America North of Mexico. Vol. 19. Magnoliophyta: Asteridae, part 6: Asteraceae, part 1. Oxford Univ. Press, New York. xxiv + 579 pp.
    • Johnson, R.A. 1986. Intraspecific resource partitioning in the bumble bees Bombus ternarius and B. pennsylvanicus. Ecology 67:133-138.
    • Koch, J., J. Strange, and P. Williams. 2012. Bumble bees of the western United States. Washington, DC: USDA Forest Service, Pollinator Partnership. 143 p.
    • Lesica, P., M.T. Lavin, and P.F. Stickney. 2012. Manual of Montana Vascular Plants. Fort Worth, TX: BRIT Press. viii + 771 p.
    • Thorp, R.W., D.S. Horning, and L.L. Dunning. 1983. Bumble bees and cuckoo bumble bees of California (Hymenoptera: Apidae). Bulletin of the California Insect Survey 23:1-79.
    • Tripoldi, A.D. and A.L. Szalanski. 2015. The bumble bees (Hymenoptera: Apidae: Bombus) of Arkansas, fifty years later. Journal of Melittology 50: doi: http://dx.doi.org/10.17161/jom.v0i50.4834
    • Williams, P., R. Thorp, L. Richardson, and S. Colla. 2014. Bumble Bees of North America. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press. 208 p.
  • Additional ReferencesLegend:   View Online Publication
    Do you know of a citation we're missing?
    • Lesica, P., M.T. Lavin, and P.F. Stickney. 2022. Manual of Montana Vascular Plants, Second Edition. Fort Worth, TX: BRIT Press. viii + 779 p.
  • Web Search Engines for Articles on "Great Starthistle"
Login Logout

Take us with you! PDF icon

Look for this PDF icon as you search and browse.  Click it to build a custom PDF with species shown on that page or for all the species within that taxonomic level.  To create your own list of species, use the PDF Creator tool at the bottom of the Advanced Search page.

Here's some links if you want to download a whole group.

Mammals
Birds
Reptiles
Amphibians
Fish
Invertebrates
Butterflies / Moths
Dragonflies / Damselflies
Ferns and allies
Conifers
Flowering Plants (Dicots)
Flowering Plants (Monocots)
Bryophytes
Lichens
Ecological Systems
Noxious Weeds
Citation for data on this website:
Great Starthistle — Centaurea scabiosa.  Montana Field Guide.  .  Retrieved on , from