SPECIES DESCRIPTION
MATRICARIA CHAMOMILLA
Family and Genus:- See- COMPOSITAE
Common Names:- Scented mayweed
Homotypic Synonyms:- Chamaemelum chamomilla, Chamomilla chamomilla,
Chamomilla officinalis, Chrysanthemum chamomilla.
Meaning:- Matricaria (L) Of-the-womb, for it's former medicinal use in the
treatment of uterine infections.
Chamomilla (G) Apple-of-the-ground. A name used by the Greek
physician and botanist Dioscorides for a plant smelling of apples.
General description:- Hairless annual, usuall branched from the base.
Stems:-
1) Ascending, 10-40 cm.
Leaves:-
1) 2- or 3-pinnatisect into linear segments.
Flowers:-
1) Capitula, solitary on long, slender peduncles.
2) Involucre, c.3 mm broadly campanulate.
3) Phyllaries, oblong-elliptical, obtuse, with pale paper-like margins.
4) Receptacle, conical, without scales, obtuse.
5) Ligules, 4-8 mm, white, soon deflexed.
6) Disc florets, tubular, 5-lobed, yellow.
Fruit:-
1) Achenes, c.1mm, pale greyish-brown, with 4-5 ribs on the ventral face.
2) Pappus, usually very small or absent, but sometimes, especially in achenes of
the ligulate florets, a conspicuous, irregularly toothed auricle, as long as or
longer than the achene.
Key features:-
1) Involucre, c. 3 mm.
2) Ligules, white 4-8 mm.
3) Florets, 5-lobed.
Habitat:- Cultivated and fallow fields, wasteground, gravelly roadsides, coastal
habitats. 0 800 m.
Distribution:- Common throughout Greece. - Most of Europe and SW Asia; widely
naturalised elsewhere the Mediterranean. Somewhat sparsely scattered across
Crete.
Flowering time:- Apr-May sometimes later.
Photos by:- Kind permission of Saxifraga - Free Nature Images.
