German Chamomile Matricaria recutita

LATIN NAME: Matricaria recutita

COMMON NAME: German Chamomile

Few plants smell as much like a summer meadow as chamomile. The German chamomile is a slender, upright annual herb that reaches about half a metre or a little more, with finely divided, feathery leaves and a wiry, branching stem. From the early summer it carries the small, daisy-like flowers, each with a ring of white ray petals around a bright, domed, yellow centre, and when the petals are crushed or the flowers are dried they give off the sweet, apple-like scent that has made the plant famous. The whole herb has an airy, delicate look, and a patch of it in flower hums with the small insects of the meadow.

The German chamomile belongs to the daisy family, Asteraceae, and it is a slender, upright annual herb of the open ground, native to the old world but grown across the temperate world. Its small, daisy-like flowers are the part that is gathered and dried, and they hold their apple-like scent for a long time in the jar. It is known as the German chamomile, and it is one of the best-loved of the old meadow herbs.

Scientific Research & Plant Biotechnology

The chamomile has a long paper trail in the food and the botanical research. The dried flowers have been studied for their fragrant oils, and the deep-blue compound that appears when the flowers are distilled has been written about in the herbal and botanical papers, while the flower heads have been looked at as a mild, soothing tea that people have brewed for centuries. The plant has also been studied in the horticulture for its easy, self-sowing ways, and the chemistry of the flowers continues to be looked at by the researchers of the natural products. The German chamomile is best understood as a traditional, mild, everyday herb rather than a medicine, and its research record is a quiet, steady one.

Ecological & Economic Value & Wide Applications

Around the garden the chamomile earns a warm welcome. The small, daisy-like flowers draw the hoverflies and the small bees, and the feathery, finely divided foliage makes a soft, low cushion of green in the border or the herb bed. The dried flowers have long brewed a pale, golden, apple-scented tea, and the herb has been a familiar of the kitchen and the stillroom for a very long time. It is an easy, self-sowing annual that will appear in the same sunny corner year after year, and it is a generous plant of the cottage garden. Scatter the tiny seeds over the surface of a fine, firm seed bed or a pot of moist compost and leave them uncovered, since they need light to wake up, keep the surface damp in a bright, open spot, and the first feathery seedlings will be up before long.

Matricaria chamomilla seeds(German Chamomile)