Asteraceae
Matricaria chamomilla
German chamomile · Wild chamomile · Scented mayweed
- Part used
- flower
- Native range
- Europe and western Asia; naturalised very widely
- Morphology
- A slender aromatic annual to about sixty centimetres, with finely divided ferny leaves and small daisy flowers whose white rays bend back from a hollow conical yellow disc — the hollow cone distinguishes it from Roman chamomile.
- Also known as
- Matricaria recutita, Chamomilla recutita
What is in it
Evidence
Modest trial support for generalised anxiety and for sleep quality, from a small number of studies. Topical preparations have some evidence in eczema and wound healing. Most of the traditional digestive uses remain untested in controlled conditions.
Safety
Very well tolerated and used in infants and children for centuries. Allergic reactions occur in people sensitive to other Asteraceae, and rare anaphylaxis is recorded, usually where Roman chamomile or a contaminant is involved. Coumarin content raises a theoretical anticoagulant concern.
Interactions: Theoretical additive effect with anticoagulants and sedatives
Regulatory: Permitted as a food and as a listed medicine ingredient.
How the traditions classify it
Three systems, rating the same plant. Where they disagree, none of them is correcting the others — they are separate frameworks that arrived at their categories independently.
Historical use
One of the most consistently used herbs in European domestic practice, recorded from Egyptian and Greek sources onward, principally for digestive complaints, infant colic, cramp and restlessness, and as a wash for inflamed skin and eyes.
Recorded as history and attributed where possible. Long use establishes that a plant was widely used, not that it worked, and not that it was safe.
Worth knowing
Chamomile is a nomenclature lesson as much as a plant. It has been Matricaria chamomilla, M. recutita and Chamomilla recutita within living memory, and older herbals disagree with newer ones for no reason a reader can see. It is also routinely confused with Roman chamomile, Chamaemelum nobile, which is a different plant in a different genus with a different chemistry and a worse allergy record.
The practical way to tell them apart is the flower centre: German chamomile's yellow cone is hollow, and Roman chamomile's is solid.
Chamazulene, which gives a good chamomile oil its deep blue colour, does not exist in the living plant at all. It forms during steam distillation from a precursor, which makes the blue a property of the preparation rather than of the flower.
Nomenclature verified against GBIF backbone taxonomy.