Plants of South Eastern New South Wales
Centaurium tenuiflorum
Common name
Narrow-flowered centaury, Branched centaury, Slender centaury, Pink stars, Centaury
Family
Gentianaceae
Where found
Disturbed sites and roadsides, often in shady places. Widespread.
Notes
Introduced annual herb to 0.4 m tall. Stems angular, hairless. Basal rosette absent or weakly developed. Leaves opposite each other, 1.5-4 cm long, 5-15 mm wide, hairless. Flowers 7-13 mm long, red to pink, tubular, with five lobes each 3-6 mm long, in branched clusters. Corolla dries purplish. Calyx mostly 6-8 mm long and usually at least half the length of the corolla tube. Flowers Spring to Summer.
Hybridises with Centaurium erythraea.
Differs from Schenkia australis in that both branches of the inflorescence are about the same size. Style is slightly forked; stigma lobes kidney-shaped to shoe-shaped, fleshy. Seed case linear.
PlantNET description: http://plantnet.rbgsyd.nsw.gov.au/cgi-bin/NSWfl.pl?page=nswfl&lvl= sp&name=Centaurium~tenuiflorum
(accessed 7 January, 2021)
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