Catananche lutea

Young plants above ground consist of a rosette with many linear to narrowly elliptic leaves with the widest point at, before or beyond midlength 3–27 cm long and ⅔–2 cm wide, with an entire margin or with a few widely distanced teeth, an acute or obtuse tip, and the base narrowing, pale green in color on both surfaces due to the pubescent hairs. Young plants produce seated, horizontally oriented cleistogamic flowerheads under the rosette leaves. Later, erect, weakly branched or unbranched flowering stems develop, which are covered in a white layer of pilose hairs. These stems carry few shorter pale green leaves which are increasingly smaller towards the top, at the foot of the branches.[2]

The terminal branches of the stem are up to 20 cm long and mostly do not carry bracts. Two types of flowerhead (or capitula) occur: early – probably cleistogamous – subterranean flowerheads at the base under the rosette leaves, which have between one and three florets, and capitula on the stems, which have many florets. The papery whitish or beige bracts, sometimes with a dark midvein or base, surround each flowerhead and form a bell-shaped involucre of 1½–3 cm long, and ¾–1½ cm in diameter. The involucral bracts on the outside are egg-shaped, 4–5 mm long and about 2½ mm wide, while the inner ones are more narrow, 9–20 mm long and 3–6 mm wide, with a pointy or tapering tip. The common base of the florets (called receptacle) is set with bristles. The yellow corolla of the aerial ligulate florets is 1¼–1½ mm long, while the tube carries long, straight, soft hairs (or pilose). The tube that is formed by the five fused anthers is 2–3 mm long, the tip squared-off.[2][3]

The one-seeded indehiscent fruits called cypselas are five-ribbed, with five pappus scales on top. Cypselas from subterranean capitula are larger (4–5 mm long) and heavier, more or less ovate in shape as seen from the side and with erect, about 3 mm long pappus scales, and come in two distinct types, one about 10 mg, glabrous and whitish in color, that shows quick germination, the other about 7⅓ mg, wrinkled, hairy and brown with delayed germination.[2][3] Besides these two types of subterranean seeds, there are three types of seeds produced by the aerial flowerheads.[6] Cypselas from the aerial flowerheads germinate quickly under favorable conditions, are smaller (about 3 mm long), lighter (about 3⅓ mg), with diverging pappus scales, and come in three distinct types. The periferous cypselas are about ovate, glabrous, whitish in color and having about 3 mm long pappus scales, subtended by an involucral bract and remain in the flowerhead until it disintegrates. The central cypselas are brown, conical with the narrow end at the base, heavily wrinkled and hairy, with about 1 cm long pappus scales that end in a long bristle. The third type of aerial cypsela is intermediate between periferous and central types, and dark green in color.[2][3]

The simple translation of the root words from the Greek κατάνάγκη (katanagkē), itself a contraction of κατά (kata), "down" and άνάγκη (anagkē), "force", is "compulsion", which is suggested to refer to the use of this plant in love potions,[8] and is reflected in the vernacular name Cupid's dart.[9] The species epithet lutea is the Latin for "yellow".[10]