Chamomile, Matricaria recutita

Biological Name: Matricaria recutita, Matricaria chamomilla.

Chamomile, a member of the daisy family, is native to Europe and western Asia. German chamomile is the most commonly used. It grows freely everywhere.

Roman chamomile is a low European perennial found in dry fields and around gardens and cultivated grounds. The stem is procumbent, the leaves alternate, bipinnate, finely dissected, and downy to glabrous. The solitary, terminal flower heads, rising 8 to 12 inches above the ground, consist of prominent yellow disk flowers and silver-white ray flowers. It flowers in June and July.

German Chamomile is a Southern European annual plant found wild along roadsides, in fields, and cultivated in gardens. The round, downy, hollow, furrowed stem may be procumbent or rise upright to a height of 16 inches. The leaves are pale green, bipinnate, sharply incised, and sessile. The flower heads are like those of Roman Chamomile, and the white ray flowers are often bent down to make the disk-flowers even more prominent.

Chamomile has been used for centuries as a medicinal plant, mostly for gastrointestinal complaints. This practice continues today.

Chamomile was supposedly dedicated to the sun by the Egyptians because of its curative value in the treatment of ague. It is used in various parts of the world as a table tea. 
It was used to regulate monthly periods. It is splendid for kidneys, spleen, colds, bronchitis, bladder troubles, to expel worms, for argue, dropsy, and jaundice. The tea was believed to make an excellent wash for sore and weak eyes and also for other open sores and wounds. 

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