| L | centaurêum (-ium) A famous fever cure (hence the German name). Still popular in herbal medicine. Flora Eur. 986 |
E | centaury, fever wort, centre of the sun (nice bit of folk etymology, that) | S | Centaurium erythraea Rafn C. umbellatum auct. |
| G | Tausengüldenkraut | F | herbe à fièvre, centaurée | I | caccia febbre |
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Photo (c) Henriette Kress, http://www.ibiblio.org/herbmed |
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Right, so things aren't confusing enough. Latin has two forms centaurêum and centaurium (both "the centaur's plant"). Vergil, of course, uses centaurêum (but in the pl.). However, botanical Latin uses centaurIUM, our plant here, for a big genus within the Gentian family (Gentianaceae), but uses CentaurEA (feminine) for a genus of thistles (such as Centaurea solstistialis, which is one contender for Vergil's carduus. See, it's all very simple.
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