The chamomile plant can grow up to twenty inches tall. It is a member of the Daisy family. The chamomile flower has a strong aroma scent.
Roman chamomile is usually propagated by root division while German chamomile seeds are sown directly in early spring. The soil should be sandy and slightly acid. Full sun is preferred except in hot dry climates where midday shade is necessary. Chamomile can also be used around the edges of containers with other herbs. After flowering cut back to the main growth.
The chamomile is originally from southern and eastern Europe. Through time it has found its way in becoming a popular plant throughout Asia North America and South America.
The fresh plant is strongly and agreeably aromatic with a distinct scent of apples - a characteristic noted by the Greeks on account of which they named it 'ground-apple' - kamai (on the ground) and melon (an apple) - the origin of the name Chamomile. The Spaniards call it 'Manzanilla ' which signifies 'a little apple ' and give the same name to one of their lightest sherries flavoured with this plant.
When walked on its strong fragrant scent will often reveal its presence before it is seen. For this reason it was employed as one of the aromatic strewing herbs in the Middle Ages and used often to be purposely planted in green walks in gardens. Indeed walking over the plant seems specially beneficial to it.
'Like a camomile bed -
The more it is trodden
The more it will spread '
The aromatic fragrance gives no hint of its bitterness of taste.
The Chamomile used in olden days to be looked upon as the 'Plant's Physician ' and it has been stated that nothing contributes so much to the health of a garden as a number of Chamomile herbs dispersed about it and that if another plant is drooping and sickly in nine cases out of ten it will recover if you place a herb of Chamomile near it.
Chamomile was known to the Romans and used for incense and in beverages. Ironically the name 'Roman Chamomile' by which it is sometimes known does not stem from this time but from a rather arbitary naming of the herb in the 19th century by a plant collector who happened to find some growing in the Colleseum in ...
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