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Centaurium pulchellum; photograph (c) Philokretes, some rights reserved (CC BY) CC BY(c) Philokretes, some rights reserved (CC BY) · observed growing wild · 2026-08-31

Centaurium pulchellum (Sw.) Hayek ex Hand.-Mazz., Stadlm., Janch. & Faltis

Lesser centaury; Branched centaury; Branching centaury; Pink centurium

Gentianaceae · Denmark, Finland +81

Cited as Kew's World Checklist cites it, Centaurium pulchellum (Sw.) Hayek ex Hand.-Mazz., Stadlm., Janch. & Faltis: GBIF's backbone key for this page carries the name with another author, (Sw.) Druce.

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Centaurium pulchellum, photograph (c) Dawid Juszczak, some rights reserved (CC BY)Centaurium pulchellum, photograph (c) Dawid Juszczak, some rights reserved (CC BY)Centaurium pulchellum, photograph (c) Dawid Juszczak, some rights reserved (CC BY)Centaurium pulchellum, photograph (c) Dawid Juszczak, some rights reserved (CC BY)Centaurium pulchellum, photograph (c) Dawid Juszczak, some rights reserved (CC BY)Centaurium pulchellum, photograph (c) Dawid Juszczak, some rights reserved (CC BY) 98 photographs ›
Habitat figures
Cold floor (1 night in 100)
-8.8°C
Record low -17.8 °C in 44 years, at a typical spot in the range NASA POWER
Warmest month, mean daily high
22°C
Jul and Aug at the habitat CHELSA
Rain a year (median across the range)
832mm
12 months of 25 mm or more in the median year CHELSA
Open-sky light
4–37DLI
Lowest to highest month (DLI) CHELSA
The year in your months, northern hemisphere
  1. Jan
  2. Feb
  3. Mar
  4. Apr
  5. May
  6. Jun
  7. Jul
  8. Aug
  9. Sep
  10. Oct
  11. Nov
  12. Dec
Rain spread: 70% of the median year's rain takes 8 months, so no short rainy season. rain rule, CHELSA
Northern hemisphere unless you set your site. The chart is in the habitat's months.

Summary

Centaurium pulchellum is a species of flowering plant in the gentian family known by the common name lesser centaury, or slender centaury. It differs from Centaurium erythraea by lacking basal rosette of leaves and by having a developed peduncle below the flowers. It is often much smaller, less than ten centimetres. It is native to the southern temperate parts of Europe.

Quoted from Wikipedia, "Centaurium pulchellum", CC BY-SA 4.0.

Cultivation

Seasons

The rain rule reads no short rainy season: 70% of the median year's rain (579 mm of 806 mm) takes 8 months, June to January. Mean temperature moves 15.2 °C between the warmest and coldest month. Months are the habitat's, northern hemisphere; shifted six months for a southern-hemisphere collection: December to July.

Rain

806 mm in the median year at the habitat, 579 mm of it June to January. Wettest month October at 82 mm, driest month April at 51 mm. Across the grid cells of the range the year's total runs 594 mm to 1,136 mm, the 10th to 90th percentile of each cell's own year. The median of the cells' own yearly totals, 832 mm, is the year's rain at the top of the page; the 806 mm here is the median year's, the twelve monthly medians added, which the rain rule reads. Habitat calendar, northern hemisphere; median year across the grid cells of the range, CHELSA.

Light

Open sky over the habitat: 4 to 37 mol/m²/day across the year (daily light integral, median year across the grid cells of the range, CHELSA; the lowest 10th-percentile month across the cells is 1, the highest 90th-percentile month 40).

Warmth and air
Temperature

Coldest: the 1st-percentile night over 44 years at a typical spot in the range is -8.8 °C, the absolute minimum -17.8 °C, 3,294 frost nights in 44 years, 74.9 a year (NASA POWER daily minima). Warmest: the 99th-percentile day is 30.8 °C. Monthly means: the coldest month's mean nightly low 0.1 °C in January (across the grid cells of the range -4.5 °C to 3.7 °C), the warmest month's mean daily high 21.8 °C in July (median year across the grid cells of the range, CHELSA). Cold floor: -8.8 °C, which is the 1st-percentile night over 44 years at a typical spot in the range (NASA POWER).

Humidity

Relative humidity at the habitat: 60 to 67% across the year (monthly means, median year across the grid cells of the range, CHELSA). A figure about the air, saying nothing about how the plant takes water.

How this section is made

Each card states this species' habitat figures with their sources, and what two fixed rules read from them; nothing here says what the plant does, wants or tolerates. The rules · the terms.

Seasons. Read from the median year of CHELSA monthly rainfall and mean temperature across the grid cells of the range: the rain rule takes the smallest set of months carrying 70% of the rain and calls it winter when its mean is more than half a degree below the year's, summer when more than that above, and neither in between; the temperature rule, used only under 120 mm, names the cooler six months when they are at least a degree cooler than the other six. Months are shifted for the other hemisphere only where the temperature curve moves 4 °C or more and the habitat lies 10° or more from the equator. A reading of the curves, not an observation of the plant.

Rain. CHELSA monthly precipitation, median year across the grid cells of the range. The rain that falls where the species is recorded; nothing about how the plant takes water.

Light. CHELSA shortwave radiation at each envelope cell, a daily-mean flux taken to a daily total and converted at 2.07 mol of PAR per MJ. The sky over the habitat, measured; what reaches a plant under a rock, a shrub or a shade cloth is not.

Temperature. NASA POWER daily minima and maxima over 44 years at a typical spot in the range, lapse-corrected -55 m to its elevation; CHELSA monthly means, median year across the grid cells of the range. The cold floor is the 1st-percentile night named in its sentence. Not a measured survival limit for any plant in a pot.

Humidity. CHELSA relative humidity, median year across the grid cells of the range.

Climate across the habitat

Habitat months, northern hemisphere

Habitat climate of Centaurium pulchellum through the yearWarmest months July and August, mean daily high 22 °C; coldest month January, mean nightly low 0.1 °C; 806 mm of rain in the median year (the twelve monthly medians added). Medians across the range, from CHELSA; the extremes at the edge from NASA POWER. Habitat months, northern hemisphere.-20°-10°0°10°20°30°40°frost30.8° 99th-percentile day, NASA POWER-17.8° lowest night in 44 years, NASA POWER°C · day and nightcold quarter0255075100125mm rainDLI 4–37RH 60–67%JanFebMarAprMayJunJulAugSepOctNovDec
day night rain medians and 10th–90th percentile across 1406 habitat cells, CHELSA cold quarter: the three months around the coldest month's mean nightly low extremes over 44 years at a typical spot in the range, from NASA POWER, marked at the edge, in no month DLI, mol/m²/dayRH %each on its own scale
Figures by month
JanFebMarAprMayJunJulAugSepOctNovDec
Day °C5 / -1–96 / -2–109 / 0–1313 / 5–1517 / 9–2019 / 14–2322 / 18–2622 / 18–2618 / 14–2214 / 9–189 / 5–126 / 2–9
Night °C0 / -5–40 / -6–32 / -4–55 / 1–79 / 6–1012 / 10–1415 / 13–1615 / 13–1612 / 10–148 / 6–114 / 1–71 / -2–5
Rain mm69 / 46–9554 / 33–7659 / 35–8651 / 31–8663 / 35–10664 / 47–9465 / 48–9572 / 49–9670 / 52–10082 / 60–11379 / 57–10878 / 53–109
DLI6 / 2–1111 / 7–1718 / 15–2528 / 26–3334 / 32–3837 / 33–4036 / 32–4029 / 27–3520 / 18–2712 / 8–187 / 3–124 / 1–9
RH %67 / 62–7065 / 60–6963 / 59–6660 / 58–6260 / 58–6260 / 58–6360 / 57–6461 / 57–6463 / 59–6464 / 62–6666 / 63–6867 / 63–70
How this section is made
Each figure is the median across the 1406 grid cells on land that hold in-range records (1733 records in those cells; 152 more cells hold records but no land by the elevation layer, so those records sit at sea and the cells are left out), with the 10th–90th percentile span across those cells after the slash where it differs. A dash is a month one or more of those cells has no figure for in the grid (a variable CHELSA does not carry there), so no median is taken rather than one over fewer cells. Extremes and elevation were read at a typical spot in the range, cell 835:3696 (48.225, 4.825). Over 44 years there: absolute minimum -17.8 °C, 1st-percentile night -8.8 °C, 99th-percentile day 30.8 °C. Normals: CHELSA V2.1 1981–2010 climatology, 0.05° cells (each the mean of ~36 1 km pixels). Across the range: median and 10th–90th percentile of each month across the 1406 distinct grid cells holding 1733 of the 1951 in-range records (152 further cells with records at sea, by the elevation layer, left out); extremes and elevation at the typical cell 835:3696 (its coldest month's mean nightly low nearest the median across cells); its position is the cell centre. Extremes: NASA POWER (MERRA-2) daily 1981–2024, cell 48.00_5.000, lapse-corrected -55 m at 6.5 °C/km. Elevation: ETOPO 2022, 267 m (cell mean).

Natural habitat

Native range as published by WCVP; the marker is where the records are densest and decides nothing: the climate was read across the cells of the in-range records placed well enough to read one, not at the marker.
Openly licensed records inside the range, framed on where they fall.
NativeDenmark, Finland, Great Britain, Ireland, Norway, Sweden, Austria, Belgium, Czechoslovakia, Germany, Hungary, Netherlands, Poland, Switzerland, Baleares, Corse, France, Portugal, Sardegna, Spain, Albania, Bulgaria, Greece, Italy, Kriti, Romania, Sicilia, Turkey-in-Europe, Yugoslavia, Belarus, Baltic States, Krym, Central European Russia, East European Russia, South European Russia, Northwest European Russia, Ukraine, Algeria, Libya, Morocco, Tunisia, Mali, Mauritania, Niger, Senegal, Chad, Djibouti, Eritrea, Ethiopia, Socotra, Somalia, Altay, West Siberia, Kazakhstan, Kirgizistan, Turkmenistan, Tadzhikistan, Uzbekistan, North Caucasus, Transcaucasus, Afghanistan, Cyprus, East Aegean Is., Iran, Iraq, Lebanon-Syria, Sinai, Turkey, Gulf States, Oman, Saudi Arabia, Hainan, Inner Mongolia, Manchuria, China North-Central, Qinghai, China Southeast, Xinjiang, Mongolia, Taiwan, India, Pakistan, West Himalaya · introduced: Mauritius, Khabarovsk, Primorye, New Brunswick, Nova Scotia, Ontario, Québec, Colorado, Washington, Wyoming, Illinois, Iowa, Minnesota, Missouri, Nebraska, South Dakota, Wisconsin, Connecticut, Indiana, Maine, Massachusetts, Michigan, New Jersey, New York, Ohio, Pennsylvania, Vermont, West Virginia, Texas, Alabama, Delaware, Louisiana, Maryland, Mississippi, Virginia, Mexico Northwest, Bermuda, Jamaica, Leeward Is. AB Ant, Windward Is., Peru, Brazil South, Argentina Northeast, Argentina South, Argentina Northwest, Chile South, Uruguay, Falkland Is. · regions are the level-3 units of the World Geographical Scheme for Recording Plant Distributions, as Kew's World Checklist records ranges, some under historical names such as Yugoslavia or Czechoslovakia (how).
Map marker51.733, 4.254 · in the densest population, 992 records (45% of those in range)
Kew's description“annual” · “temperate” · quoted from WCVP, RBG Kew (CC BY 4.0); not derived here
Evidence usedThe map marker rests on all 2191 georeferenced records inside the native range; the climate across the range on the 1733 of them in the land cells it reads, of 1951 placed to within 10 km; the map shows only the 1602 openly licensed ones, which alone would put the marker 196 km away. 183 records outside the WCVP native range not used. 240 in-range records are placed to worse than 10 km, or with no stated accuracy (admitted only as a person's observation to three decimals), and stay on the map but off the climate.
Other GBIF keysRecords also from GBIF's key 5414471 (Centaurium pulchellum (Sw.) Hayek ex Hand.-Mazz., Stadlm., Janch. & Faltis): Kew's file holds it as Centaurium pulchellum (Sw.) Hayek ex Hand.-Mazz., Stadlm., Janch. & Faltis (accepted); 900 records, from GBIF's search API on the day of the build.
How this section is made
The map marker: the openly licensed record nearest the middle of the densest 1° population inside the densest 4° block of the 2191 in-range records; it decides nothing. Records outside the native range, living specimens and records marked introduced are not used; which records count.

Photographs

Centaurium pulchellum, photograph 1did not loadCentaurium pulchellum, photograph 2did not loadCentaurium pulchellum, photograph 3did not loadCentaurium pulchellum, photograph 4did not loadCentaurium pulchellum, photograph 5did not loadCentaurium pulchellum, photograph 6did not load

Photographs: (c) Dawid Juszczak, some rights reserved (CC BY) (6).

Similar habitat climate The 6 nearest by mean daily high, mean nightly low and rain, month by month. How.

Dactylis glomerata Dactylis glomerata Orchardgrass Photo: CC BY, 大澤風季 ohsawa_FukiJacobaea erucifolia Jacobaea erucifolia Hoary ragwort Photo: CC0, author not statedVicia tetrasperma Vicia tetrasperma Smooth tare Photo: CC BY, Andreas SchneiderSedum acre Sedum acre Biting stonecrop Photo: CC BY, Dmitriy BochkovCorynephorus canescens Corynephorus canescens Grey hair-grass Photo: CC0, author not statedMelilotus altissimus Melilotus altissimus Tall melilot Photo: CC BY, guywallbanks

Other Centaurium 3 in the reference

Centaurium erythraea Centaurium erythraea European centaury Photo: CC BY, Oleksandr ShynderCentaurium littorale Centaurium littorale Seaside centaury Photo: CC BY, Michel LangeveldCentaurium tenuiflorum Centaurium tenuiflorum Slender centaury Photo: CC0, author not stated

Names & registers

Also known as Centaurion pulchellum; Centaurium morierei; Centaurium pulchellum var. pulchellum; Eryhtraea morierei; Erythraea balearica and 7 more. (GBIF Backbone)

GBIFPOWOIPNIWFOWikidataWikipediaiNaturalist

The record

Family
Gentianaceae
Described by
(Sw.) Hayek ex Hand.-Mazz., Stadlm., Janch. & Faltis
Native to
Denmark, Finland, Great Britain +80
Wild records
2191 in range · 1602 open

Every figure here is derived from public data by a stated rule and names its source; nothing about this species is written for its page by a person or by AI, apart from the marked, credited quotations. How →

Where this page came from built 2026-10-21
GBIF species record gbif.species answeredasked 2026-10-21GBIF's key 7439391 is Centaurium pulchellum (Sw.) Druce; the page links Kew's Centaurium pulchellum (Sw.) Hayek ex Hand.-Mazz., Stadlm., Janch. & Faltis, and the name is cited as Kew cites it
GBIF synonyms gbif.synonyms answeredasked 2026-10-21
GBIF common names gbif.vernacular answeredasked 2026-10-21names fetched 2026-10-21
WCVP native range wcvp.distribution answeredas of 2026-06-04
GBIF occurrence records gbif.occurrences answeredasked 2026-10-21GBIF occurrence download https://doi.org/10.15468/dl.hbdw64, of 2026-10-21; 900 records of GBIF's key 5414471, Centaurium pulchellum (Sw.) Hayek ex Hand.-Mazz., Stadlm., Janch. & Faltis (Kew's file holds it as Centaurium pulchellum (Sw.) Hayek ex Hand.-Mazz., Stadlm., Janch. & Faltis (accepted)): GBIF occurrence search API; 20 records within 1 km of a botanic garden, herbarium or zoo left out (13 at a botanic garden or arboretum, 7 at a zoo; Wikidata's list)
Habitat climate climate answeredasked 2026-10-21
Daily extremes (NASA POWER) climate.extremes answeredasked 2026-10-21NASA POWER (MERRA-2) daily 1981–2024, cell 48.00_5.000, lapse-corrected -55 m at 6.5 °C/km
Wikidata wikidata answeredasked 2026-10-21found by its label; its POWO identifier 366702-1 is Kew's for Centaurium pulchellum (Sw.) Hayek ex Hand.-Mazz., Stadlm., Janch. & Faltis
Wikipedia wikipedia answeredasked 2026-10-21
iNaturalist photographs, wild inat.photos.wild answeredasked 2026-10-22from iNaturalist's open data of 2026-09-27: research-grade observations with an open-licence photograph, the 24 whose photographs iNaturalist received last (the open data holds no votes); filled 2026-10-22
iNaturalist photographs, cultivated inat.photos.cultivated not asked
GBIF media gbif.media answeredasked 2026-10-21read from the page's key and its other keys: 11 from GBIF's key 5414471
OpenAlex papers openalex not askednot yet asked for this reference; a later fill takes the papers from OpenAlex's snapshot

Every source is recorded as having answered, reported nothing, refused, failed, not been asked, or answered twice where one answer is taken (“not taken: two items answered”), and, for a source asked when this page was built, when: the figures are as the source held them that day; a source read from a file (Kew's World Checklist, a GBIF download) says "as of" the file's day instead; a row carried from an earlier build of the page names that build instead. Only “nothing to report” is ever shown as an absence. Records came from 236 datasets via GBIF.org; each carries its own licence.

Cultifolio

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