Vern.: Babuna, Babunah.

Matricaria chamomilla L., Sp. Pl. ed. 2. 1256. 1763; Boiss., Fl. Orient. 3: 323. 1875; Hook. f., Fl. Brit. Ind. 3: 315. 1881; Grierson in P.H.Davis, Fl. Turk. 5: 293. 1975 non L. 1753 – nom. illeg.; Chamomilla recutita (L.) Rauschert in Folia Geobot. Phytotax. (Praha) 9: 255. 1974; Kay in Tutin et al., Fl. Europ. 4: 167. 1976.

Erect or ascending, profusely branched above, up to 50 cm tall, glabrous herb with sulcate or obtusely angled internodes. Leaves on short, basally dilated and sheathing petioles, oblong, (1.5-) 2.5 – 6 (-7) cm long, up to 2 cm wide, finely bipinnatisect into narrowly linear to filiform, 3 – 4 mm long, c. 1 mm wide, ± acute to shortly mucronate ultimate segments. Capitula solitary terminal, on up to 8 (-10) cm long, filiform peduncles, 1 – 1.5 (-2) cm across, sweet-smelling. Receptacle sharply conical, 5 – 6 mm long, foveolate. Involucre hemispherical, phyllaries 2-3-seriate, imbricate, broadly lanceolate to oblong, 1 – 2.5 (-3) x 1 – 1.25 mm, greenish with pale membranous margins, obtuse. Ray-florets female, with white, oblong, 5 – 8 x 3 – 3.5 mm, shortly 3-fid, deflexed ligule from c. 1 mm long tube. Disc-florets yellow, 5-lobed, with the externally sparsely glandulose corolla tube becoming campanulate above the constriction; style branches truncate-penicillate. Cypselas oblong-cylindrical, ± curved, c. 1 mm long, greyish-brown, sparsely glandular, with 5 ribs on ventral surface, ray-cypselas with an irregularly toothed, c. 1 mm long, membranous auricle, disc-cypselas slightly coronate or epappose.

Fl. Per.: April-August.

Type: Described from Europe.

Distribution: Widespread throughout Europe, and most of temperate Asia; introduced and weedy in other parts of the world.

The plant parts, especially floral parts and the oil extracted by distillation, are used as a substitute for Chamaemelum nobile (L.) All. (=Anthemis nobilis L.).