TANSY 187 



A sand soil is the chief requirement of Stinking Mayweed, but it is 

 also satisfied with rock soils of many different types and ages. 



A beetle, Apion sorbi, and three moths, Chamomile Shark (Cucullia 

 ckamomill&) t Eupcecilia anthemidiana, and Lozopera smeathmanniana, 

 live on it. 



Anthemis is from the Greek anthos, a flower; and Cotula, Brunfels, 

 is a Greek word for a small cup or hollow vessel. 



The names by which it is chiefly known are Balder Brae, Baldeye- 

 brow, Camomile, Dog's or Stinking Camomile, Camovyne, Dog or 

 Horse Daisy, Dog-bincler, Dog-fennel, Dog-finkle, Flowan, Hog's 

 Fennel, Jayweed, Madder, Madenwecle, Marse, Marg, Mathes, May- 

 weed, Morgan, Murg, Poison Daisy. Balder's Brae, i.e. Baldur's 

 Brow, refers to the white brow of Balclur, the popular northern deity, 

 given in Sweden. The prose Edda speaking of Balclur says: "So 

 fair and dazzling is he in form and features that rays of light seem to 

 issue from him, and thou mayst have some idea of his beauty when 

 I tell thee that the whitest of all plants is called Baldur's Brow ". 



This plant was once used for hysteria, haemorrhage, swellings, 

 scrofula, rheumatism. It is acrid. 



ESSENTIAL SPECIFIC CHARACTERS: 



158. Anthemis Cotiila, L. Stem branched, erect, furrowed, angular, 

 leaves bipinnatifid, glabrous, linear segments, flowerheads white, with 

 yellow disk, ray florets without styles, phyllaries with membranous 

 margins. 



Tansy (Tanacetum vulgare, L.) 



Usually associated with cultivation or gardens, this plant has been 

 met with in Early Glacial beds at Beeston, Norfolk, at the base of the 

 Arctic freshwater bed. It is found in the North Temperate and 

 Arctic Zones in Arctic Europe, Siberia, N.W. America, and has been 

 introduced into the United States. It is general in Great Britain, but 

 is not found in Cardigan, Flint, Mid Lanes, Linlithgow, Main Argyle, 

 Dumbarton, and is often naturalized. In Scotland it is doubtfully wild, 

 and certainly not so in Ireland. 



Tansy is one of the plants whose status is very doubtful. It may 

 be found by the side of a stream in an apparently native station, or by 

 the roadside at a distance from a house, or along the hedgerows, in 

 fields of corn, where it has been said to be a pest, difficult to eradicate. 

 At other times it turns up on waste ground, and is then undoubtedly 

 a straggler from elsewhere. It is often to be seen growing in cottage 

 gardens. 



