55; see text Knautia is a genus of flowering plants in the family Caprifoliaceae.

It includes 55 species native to Europe, North Africa, Western and Central Asia, and Siberia.

[1] The common names are variants of "widow flower".

Others are given the name "scabious", which properly belongs to the related genus (Scabiosa).

The name Knautia comes from the 17th-century German botanists, Drs.