Centaurea acaulis L. is native to Tunisia and Algeria (Pottier-Alapetite, 1981) and is also known to occur in Lampedusa, one of the Pelagian Islands, 210km south of Sicily, 128 km from the Tunisian coast (Bartolo et al. 1988) and 150 km from Malta (Sommier, 1908), and in the north of Spain (Guinea Lopez & Ceballos Jimenez, 1974). In the February of2001, one of us (RB) encountered a population of this species in leaf on the Nuffara plateau in Gozo.peer-reviewe
