Images: ©Jouko Lehmuskallio
Scented Mayweed
Matricaria recutita
- Latin synonyms: Chamomilla recutita, Matricaria chamomilla
- Name also: Wild Chamomile
- Family: Daisy Family – Asteraceae (Compositae)
- Growing form: Annual herb.
- Height: 10–50 cm (4–20 in.)
- Flower: Numerous white, strap-shaped, female ray-florets and yellow, tubular, bisexual disc-florets are grouped together into flower-like heads (capitula), 1–2.5 cm (0.4–1 in.) across. Ligule of ray-florets soon turns downwards. Its tip is shallowly 3-toothed. Corolla of disc-florets 5-lobed. Calyx absent. Stamens 5, anthers united into a tube around the style. Pistil of 2 fused carpels, style solitary, stigma 2-lobed. Capitulum subtended by whorls of involucral bracts. Capitula solitary, terminating stem and branches.
- Leaves: Alternate, short-stalked or stalkless, hairless. Blade bi- to tripinnately divided. Divisions fine, thread-like to linear.
- Fruit: A yellowish, oval, 4–5-ridged cypsela without a pappus.
- Habitat: Fields, yards, roadsides, waste ground.
- Flowering time: June–October.
The scented mayweed is an aromatic annual. Its involucre consists of bracts which are linear, greenish along the midrib, and pale and membranous along the margins. This species originates from Central Asia. It was earlier used as a medicinal plant. Tea made from the plant has been drunk as a treatment against various ailments.
The scented mayweed is easily mistaken for the very common scentless mayweed (Tripleurospermum perforatum). Although these plants now are considered to belong to different genera, they are so similar that even Linnaeus, father of plant systematics, thought they were same species. The arts can, however, be separated by the aromatic smell of the scented mayweed, and by its conical and hollow receptacle.
