''Centaurea behen'' is a species of ''

Centaurea ''Centaurea'' () is a genus of over 700 species of herbaceous thistle-like flowering plants in the family Asteraceae. Members of the genus are found only north of the equator, mostly in the Eastern Hemisphere; the Middle East and surrounding reg ...

'' that grows in the wild under full sun in northern Iraq and Armenia and in many other areas of Western and Central Asia with a roughly similar environment, stretching from Lebanon to Kazakhstan. The plant's leaves near ground-level are relatively large, comparable to broad dock or spinach leaves. Rising above those leaves are branching stalks that carry much smaller lightweight leaves and, when in flower, small yellow flowers. Including the upper stalks, the plant is typically a little less than a meter high off the ground. The plant has multiple thick roots. The roots have a brown skin on the outside and a white color internally. The roots come to commerce in a dried form, looking shrivelled, and then are ground to a powder, and used for several traditional herbal medicine purposes. The roots are called ''Behman Safed'', also known as White ''Behmen'', ''Safaid Behmen'', in

Ayurvedic Ayurveda () is an alternative medicine system with historical roots in the Indian subcontinent. The theory and practice of Ayurveda is pseudoscientific. Ayurveda is heavily practiced in India and Nepal, where around 80% of the population rep ...

Indian medicine.''The Principal Drugs of Vegetable Origin Met with in British India'', volume 2
by Dymock et al., year 1891 pages 303-306. The plant is grown under cultivation in northern India for the medicinal use of its roots.

References

behen Medicinal plants of Asia Plants used in Ayurveda {{Cynareae-stub