SPECIES DESCRIPTION
ANTHEMIS COTULA

Family:- COMPOSITAE/Subgen. ANTHEMIS/Sect. MARUTA

Common Name:- Stinking chamomile, stinking mayweed

Synonym:- Anthemis foetida, Chamaemelum cotula, Maruta cotula, Maruta
foetida, Matricaria cotula.

Meaning:- Anthemis (Gr) Flowery.
                  Cotula (L) Small-cup. Derived from the Italian word ''cota'' and refers to
the leaf arrangement.
                           
General description:- Fetid annual (7-)20-50(-70) cm, thinly covered with short,
dense, matted hairs, to almost hairless.

Stems:-
1) Erect or ascending, branched above to give a flat-topped inflorescence.

Leaves:-
1) 1·5-6·5 x 0·5-3 cm, ovate or ovate-oblong in outline, 2- to 3-pinnatisect.
2) Lobes, narrowly linear, acuminate, with a hyaline mucro, sparsely hairy,
    sometimes fleshy.

Flowers:-
1) Capitula, 12-30 mm diam. with white rays and a yellow disk.
2) Inflorescence, peduncles, (2·5-)6-15 cm, not clavate.
3) Involucre, hemisperical.
4) Bracts, more or less oblong, acute to obtuse, with scarious margins.
5) Receptacle, 5-8 x 1·5-3 mm, narrowly conical, without scales in the lower half.
6) Scales, linear-subulate, shorter than to equalling the florets.
7) Ligules, 5-14 mm, or sometimes absent.

Fruit:-
1) Achenes, (1-)1·3-1·8 mm, caducous, turbinate, slightly constricted at the apex,    
    8- to 11-ribbed, ribs tuberculate or verruculose.
2) Pappus, absent.

Key features:-
1) Achenes turbinate, caducous, tuberculate or verruculose; pappus absent.
2) Ligules usually present.
3) Leaf-lobes narrowly linear.

Habitat:- Weed of gravelly roadsides, gardens, vineyards, wasteland and fallow
fields 0-700(1100) m.

Distribution:- Throughout Greece, most of Europe and through Anatolia to
Caucasia and Iran. Limited distribution on Crete.

Flowering time:- May-July, occasionally later.

Photos by:- Steve Lenton