CHAMOMILE INFORMATION I/II

      Title: CHAMOMILE INFORMATION I/II
  Categories: Seasonings, Info
       Yield: 1 Info below
  
       1    Info below
  
                          - General Information -
   
   "If you pick up a half-dozen herb books to look up chamomile, you are
   likely to find a bewilderment of names. There's Roman (or English)
   chamomile, a perennial, and German (or Hungarian) chamomile, an
   annual. The German species might be listed as Matricaria chamomile,
   Chamomilla recutita, or Matricaria recutita. These are all the same
   plant! Roman chamomile is referred to in some sources as Anthemis
   nobilis, in others as Chamaemelum nobile. The currently accepted
   nomenclature is Matricaria recutita for the German, and Chamaemelum
   nobile for the Roman.
   
   "The word chamomile (sometimes spelled camomile, and generally
   pronounced with a long i), is derived from Greek - chamos (ground)
   and melos (apple), referring to the fact that the plant grows low to
   the ground, and the fresh blooms have a pleasing apple scent. Even at
   this level of naming, all is not clear.  Roman chamomile is indeed
   low growing, and is used for clipped lawns in England.  But German
   chamomile grows to a relatively stately 2 1/2 feet.
   
                            - Telling Them Apart -
   
   "German chamomile is a sweet-scented, branching plant whose tiny
   leaves are twice-divided into thin linear segments. The flowers, up
   to one inch across, have a hollow, cone-shaped receptacle, with tiny
   yellow disk flowers covering the cone.  The cone is surrounded by 10
   to 20 white, down-curving ray flowers, giving it the appearance of a
   miniature daisy. German chamomile is native to Europe and Western
   Asia, where it is weedy; it has escaped from cultivation in the
   United States as well."
   
   "Roman chamomile...has a spreading habit and grows only about a foot
   high. Leaves are twice or thrice divided into linear segments, which
   are flatter and thicker than those of German chamomile. Its flowers
   are also up to an inch across, but its disk is a broader conical
   shape, and the receptacle is solid. Roman chamomile also has white
   ray flowers, though a number of cultivated varieties have none at all
   and give the appearance of little yellow buttons.  There are also
   double-flowered cultivars (well-known by the sixteenth century), and
   a flowerless one called 'Treneague,' named for the English estate on
   which it was developed. Roman chamomile is native to Western Europe
   northward to Northern Ireland.
   
   "If you have a pile of dried chamomile flowers, you can distinguish
   the Roman from the German by splitting the flower receptacle open
   down the middle.  If the receptacle is solid, it is Roman; if hollow,
   it is German. You should test five or ten flowers to be sure, because
   occasionally a German chamomile flower will be solid in the interior.
   Roman chamomile has slightly hairy stems, while those of the German
   are smooth. In the live plant, the flowers of Roman chamomile sit
   singly atop the stem, while those of the German are on divided stems
   in a comb-like arrangement (known as a corymb)."
   
   Excerpted from Steven Foster's "Chamomile" article in "The Herb
   Companion." Dec. 1992/Jan. 1993, Vol. 5, No. 2. Pp. 64-65. Posted by
   Cathy Harned.
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