It's a Sicilian plant used in classical gardening because of its ornamental value provided by its persistent gray-green leaves and yellow flowers grouped as a daisy. The centaureas are named in honor of the Centaurs, hybrid beings from classical mythology made our by the head, arms and torso of a human and the bottom of a horse. Of them all, the wisest and kindest one was Chiron. Friend and tutor of many heroes such as Hercules, who killed him unintentionally, when the demigod of force accidentally hit him with his poisoned arrows. To remember him, the Olympian gods ascended Chiron to heaven to form the constellation of Sagittarius. As both human and animal nature, Chiron was characterized as an authority in the medical and veterinary sciences. As a wise man in the field of medicine, Chiron would be very aware of the possibilities offered by plants as drugs: the union and confusion of the professions of doctor and botanist was something quite ordinary from Antiquity to Modern Times practically. According to a legend, the plants of the family of centaureas, like the velvet centaurea, have in common the fact of having been the first medicinal plants discovered by the centaur Chiron.