Herb Chamomile

This attractive herb produces pretty white flowers with yellow cone-shaped centres and light green feathery foliage. The flowers give off an apple-like fragrance when crushed and this gives the herb its name - chamomile comes from the Greek for "earth-apple". It is widely used in herbal medicine, often as an aid to sleep and a remedy for digestive problems. Rarely seen in the wild nowadays, it has been widely used since historic times for treating a wide spectrum of disorders. One of the oldest aromatic herbal plants, the flower and essential oils have long been shown to exhibit anti-inflammatory and antispasmodic effects, and it is still widely used in food, cosmetics, disinfectants, and medicines. Incredibly, not many insects will bother your chamomile plants, and they even repel cucumber beetles (so plant near the veggie garden!) The true "Chamomile" is actually the dried and powdered flower heads, the flower beings an age-old medicinal drug known in ancient Egypt, Greece and Rome. Its popularity grew throughout the Middle Ages, when people turned to it as a remedy for numerous medical complaints including asthma, migraines, colic, fevers, inflammations, nausea, nervous complaints, children's ailments, skin diseases and many more. Indeed, as a popular remedy, it has often been compared as the European counterpart of ginseng!