The Late Star of the Glades

Habit: Annual herbaceous plant, 30 to 80 cm tall, supported by a robust taproot.

Stems: Erect, slender, branching from the base and markedly bristly, particularly in the lower portion, due to the presence of reflexed (downward-facing) hairs.

Leaves: They exhibit marked polymorphism depending on their position. The basal leaves are more or less oblanceolate-spatulate, with entire or nearly entire margins. The stem leaves (cauline) are opposite and vary from lyrate to deeply pinnate, although they can sometimes be entire.

Flowers: Grouped in an inflorescence consisting of hemispherical flower heads approximately 1 cm in diameter, supported by long peduncles. The flower head is covered with scales and lanceolate spatulas, with an acute apex terminating in a short mucro. The individual flowers have a zygomorphic corolla with highly variable coloration, ranging from yellowish-white to lilac-pink, to violet or pale blue. The flowers in the lower peripheral crown have more elongated and conspicuously radiant outer lobes. The stamens are numerous, composed of threadlike filaments bearing dorsifixed, purplish anthers.

Fruit: A cypsela (a specialized achene) 5–6 mm long, enclosed in a protective involucre with eight apical teeth and surmounted by a small, cup-shaped, serrated calyx.

Flowering: July - October.

Chorological type: Southeastern Europe.

Distribution in Italy: Widely distributed and found in the wild in almost all regions of the peninsula and its islands.

Habitat: Colonizes uncultivated lands, arid and ruderal environments, fallow fields, sunny slopes, and soils subject to erosion, from the plains to the hills and low mountains.

Genus (Cephalaria): Derived directly from the Greek word κεφαλή (cephalé, head, chief), an explicit and clear reference to the globular shape of its inflorescences, in which the individual flowers are densely grouped in dense flower heads.

Species (transsylvanica): Latin geographical epithet meaning "of Transylvania," the historical-geographical region of central Romania from which the historical specimens used for the first scientific description of the species originated.