amt 
* 
4g ~ ORD. III. Compositix. ANTHEMIS NOBILIS. 
seeds are small, and of an irregular shape: the receptacle is supplied 
with rigid bristle-like pale. It =o most pastures, and flowers 
in July - and August. 
The mame Camomile j is supposed to be expressive of the smell of 
the plant xauemeror, quoniam odorem mali habeat.* It is referred to 
the «Sus of Dioscorides, and to the 2» of Theophrastus. Matricaria 
Chamomilla, or Corn Feverfew, is similar.in its general appearance 
to the Anthemis nobilis, and is directed for. officinal use by most of 
the foreign pharmacopeeias; but the plant which we have here 
figured has a more fragrant and a more powerful odour, yields 
more’essential oil, and of course is the more efficacious. _ 
A double-flowered variety of Camomile is very common, and 
usually kept at the shops, but as the odorous and sapid matter 
chiefly resides in the disc, or tubular part of the florets, the London 
College therefore lars prefer the — flowers, in which 
this matter is most abundant. ° 
Both the leaves and flowers of this plant have a strong though 
not ungrateful smell; and a very bitter nauseous taste, but the 
latter are the bitterer, and considerably more aromatic. ‘“ Camomile 
flowers give out their virtues both to water and rectified spirit: 
when the flowers have been dried so_as to be pulverable, the infu- 
sions prove more grateful than when they are fresh or but mode- 
rately dried. Distilled with water, they impregnate the aqueous 
fluid pretty str -ongly with their flavour: if the quantity of camomile 
submitted to the operation is large, a little essential oil‘ separates 
~ and riseg to the surface of the water, in colour yellow, with a cast 
of greenish or brown, of a pungent taste, and a strong smell, 
exactly resembling that of the camomile. Rectified spirit, drawn 
© fis £.,.%. c Zi. 
: The tubes of the florets appear beset with minute nie stg ceslaie 
secrete the essential vil. 
© Baumé obtained from $2 Ib, of the flowers 13 drams, vs once. 18 drams of 
essential oil. But from a like quantity of the herb, without the flowers, only half 
a dram of this oit was procured. See. Berg. M. M. p, 695. © 
