Chamaemelum

Miller

Gard. Dict. Abr. ed. 4, vol. 1. 1754.

Etymology: Greek chamae- , on the ground, lowly, creeping, and melon, orchard, alluding to common habitat
Treatment appears in FNA Volume 19. Treatment on page 496. Mentioned on page 14, 26, 487.

Annuals or perennials, 5–20(–35+) cm, (aromatic). Stems usually 1, erect, ascending, or prostrate, usually branched, glabrous or glabrate, puberulent, or villous to strigoso-sericeous (hairs basifixed). Leaves mostly cauline (at flowering); alternate; petiolate or sessile; blades oblong, ovate, elliptic, or spatulate, 1–3-pinnately lobed (ultimate lobes narrowly spatulate to linear or filiform, apices apiculate), ultimate margins entire, faces glabrous or glabrate, puberulent, or villous to strigoso-sericeous. Heads radiate or discoid, borne singly or in lax corymbiform arrays. Involucres hemispheric or broader, 6–10 mm diam. Phyllaries persistent, 22–45+ in 3–4+ series (sometimes reflexed in fruit), mostly ovate to oblong, unequal, margins and apices (colorless, brownish, or greenish) scarious. Receptacles hemispheric to conic, paleate; paleae weakly navicular to ± flat (medially chartaceous, margins scarious, apices rounded). Ray florets 0 or 12–21+, pistillate and fertile or styliferous and sterile; corollas white, laminae oblong (often marcescent, reflexed in fruit). Disc florets 100–200+, bisexual, fertile; corollas yellow, tubes ± cylindric (somewhat dilated, bases saccate, weakly clasping apices of cypselae), throats funnelform, lobes 5, deltate. Cypselae ± obovoid, weakly obcompressed, ribs or nerves (weak): 2 lateral, 1 adaxial, faces finely striate, glabrous (pericarps with myxogenic cells in longitudinal rows, without resin sacs); pappi 0. x = 9.

Distribution

Introduced; s, w Europe, n Africa.

Discussion

Species 2 (2 in the flora).

Selected References

None.

Key

1 Annuals; stems erect or ascending, glabrous or puberulent; margins and apices of phyllaries brownish Chamaemelum fuscatum
1 Perennials; stems mostly prostrate (much branched, often forming mats), ± strigoso-sericeous to villous; margins and apices of phyllaries greenish or lacking pigment Chamaemelum nobile