MANZAXILLA (Matricdria discoidea. D.C.). Flower heads 

 greenish yellow, with a fringe of white at base, somewhat 

 egg-shaped, about | inch high, borne in loose, terminal clusters. 

 Leaves much dissected into short, very narrow lobes, pleas- 

 antly scented. A leafy annual, a few inches to a foot high, 

 blooming from February to July, common along waysides and 

 in open grounds from Southern California to Alaska, and east- 

 ward more sparingly along the railroads even to the Atlantic 

 Coast. 



This familiar little plant shows its chubby round face in 

 the spring, and is worthy of more respect than it usually gets. 

 Pinch its leaves and you are rewarded with a delicious, if faint, 

 fragrance of apples. Perhaps from this has originated the 

 name by which the Spanish-Californians call it Manzanilla, 

 which means, a "little apple." They have long recognized 

 it as a medicinal herb, and have employed it, I believe, for 

 bowel complaints and ague. It is a confirmed globe-trotter, 

 having spread from its native home in northern Asia not only 

 eastward to our Pacific Coast (its first foothold in America) 

 but westward to Europe, where it has long been naturalized. 



248 



