Leucanthemum vulgare Seeds | Oxeye Daisy
LATIN NAME: Leucanthemum vulgare
COMMON NAME: Oxeye Daisy, Marguerite, Moon Daisy
Plant Profile
The oxeye daisy is a perennial of meadows, roadsides and rough grass across Europe and temperate Asia, and it has been carried so widely that it now grows in every temperate region of the world. It makes a rosette of spoon-shaped, dark green leaves in its first year, and from this rise stems forty to eighty centimetres tall, each carrying a single flower head with white rays and a bright yellow disc.
The heads are three to five centimetres across, and a well-grown clump can carry thirty of them between June and August. The plant spreads by a short, creeping rhizome and by seed, and in a lawn it survives mowing by flowering on stems that grow shorter each time it is cut. The flowering stems are tough and wiry, which is why the plant is so hard to pull out of a meadow by hand.
Science & Biotechnology
The species was long known as Chrysanthemum leucanthemum, and the move to Leucanthemum followed a revision of the chrysanthemum group in the 1990s based on chromosome counts and on the shape of the seed. The plant is a polyploid, carrying two sets of chromosomes from each of two ancestral species, and that redundancy is part of why it adapts so readily to mown grass, road verges and pasture.
The daisy head is a compressed inflorescence, and the white rays are sterile florets that serve only to attract; the fertile florets are the tiny yellow ones in the centre, and each makes a single seed. The species is self-incompatible and depends on insects, mainly hoverflies and small bees. Its success as a weed lies in its plasticity: in mown grass it flowers on stems only a few centimetres tall, while in unmown meadow the same plant reaches eighty centimetres.
Uses & Benefits
Oxeye daisy is planted in meadow mixtures and wildflower strips, where it establishes quickly and flowers in the first or second year. It is also used in rough grass and on banks, and it is one of the few wildflowers that will hold its own in a lawn if the mowing is relaxed in June.
The young leaves are edible in salads, though bitter, and the unopened buds were once pickled as a substitute for capers. In herbal practice the plant was used as a mild astringent and cough remedy, and the flowers were made into a lotion for the skin. It should not be planted near grazing land in regions where it is listed as invasive, and it can become a nuisance in a garden meadow if it is allowed to set seed freely.
Growing from Seed
Sow in spring or autumn on the surface of a light compost, since the seed needs light, and keep at 18-20 °C. Germination takes two to three weeks. The seedlings can be pricked out when small and grown on in pots; they will flower in their second year.
Plant out in autumn in any soil, in full sun, and water until established. To keep a meadow patch from being taken over, cut the plants back after flowering before the seed ripens, and lift some of the rosettes each autumn. In a border, deadhead regularly and divide the clumps every two or three years in spring. The plant self-seeds freely and will move around a garden, which is either its charm or its fault depending on the planting.
Our Take
The archetypal meadow daisy, easy, early and generous, but a plant to keep in check where it is not native.
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