ANTHEMIS ARVENSIS

Family and Genus:- See- COMPOSITAE

Common Names:- Corn Chamomile.

Homotypic synonyms:- Chamaemelum arvense.

Meaning:- Anthemis. From Greek anthemon, “flower”.
                  Arvensis. Latin, “of cultivated fields”, referring to its characteristic arable habitat.

General description:- An annual or biennial with finely divided leaves and solitary daisy-like capitula with white ray florets and yellow disc florets. An archaeophyte in Great Britain.

Stems:-
1) Usually 10-50 cm high, erect to ascending, simple or branched, sparsely to
    densely hairy.

Leaves:-
1) Cauline, alternate, sessile to shortly petiolate, obovate-oblong in outline and 1-3-
   pinnatisect into linear-oblong to linear-lanceolate ultimate segments.

Flowers:-
1) Capitula, solitary, terminal, radiate and about 20-35 mm across, borne on slender
    peduncles.
2) Phyllaries, arranged in several series, oblong to lanceolate, hairy, with scarious
    margins.
3) Receptacle, convex to conical in fruit, with paleae between the florets.
4) Ray florets, female, white; ligules oblong and spreading.
5) Disc florets, bisexual, numerous, yellow and tubular with 5 lobes.
6) Stamens, 5 in each disc floret, with anthers united into a tube around the style.
7) Styles, bifid at the apex.
8) Ovary, inferior, unilocular, with a single ovule.

Fruit:-
1) Cypsela, obconic to subcylindrical, ribbed and tuberculate.
2) Pappus, absent or represented by a very short rim.

Distinguishing features:-
Distinguished from Stinking Chamomile by its lack of a strong foetid smell and by the paleae extending over most or all of the receptacle; in Stinking Chamomile the paleae are confined chiefly to the upper part of the receptacle.

Flowering time:- June to September.

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Toxicity:- No significant toxicity is established; ingestion is not recommended without reliable evidence.

Habitat:- Arable fields, field margins, waste ground, roadsides and other open disturbed ground, especially on light soils.

Distribution:- An archaeophyte in Great Britain and Ireland, now local and declining in arable habitats. Its native range extends from Macaronesia and Europe through the Mediterranean region to Iran.

Conservation status:- Not assigned a native GB threat category.

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