Kiowa Conservation District 
   `Helping People Help the Land` in Western Elbert County, Colorado

                                                                                                                                           

                                   

Home
Products
Services
Education Events
Financial Assistance
Flood Control Dams
Grass Seed
Mosquito Larvicide
Noxious Weeds
Seedling Tree Program
Tips and Links
Table of Contents

Diffuse Knapweed
Centaurea diffusa

This weed is a diffusely branched annual or short-lived perennial, 1 to 2' tall, stems are rough to the touch.  Seedlings have finely divided leaves covered with short hair.  Herbicides are most effective when applied at this early growth stage.

Flowering heads are numerous and narrow.  Flowers are white to rose or sometimes purplish.  Margins of the bracts are divided like the teeth of a comb, and bracts are tipped with a definite slender spine.

Diffuse knapweed infests roadsides, waste areas and dry rangelands, and as a highly competitive plant, threatens to exclude may desirable species.  Flowering occurs from July to September.