ChamomileMatricaria chamomilla

Did you know?

• The word chamomile comes from the Greek khamaimēlon, "earth apple," from khamai, "on the ground," and mēlon, "apple," after the plant's scent^{[2, 6]}. Old English already had the word, as camemalon^[6].

• In Spanish, chamomile is manzanilla, "little apple," from manzana, apple^{[8, 9, 10]}.

• In Beatrix Potter's The Tale of Peter Rabbit (1902), Peter's mother puts him to bed after his adventure in Mr. McGregor's garden and makes him some camomile tea^[11].

• There are two chamomiles. German chamomile, Matricaria chamomilla, is an annual; Roman or English chamomile, Chamaemelum nobile, is a different plant, a perennial. Both are brewed as tea^{[3, 4, 12]}.

• Oil distilled from chamomile flowers is blue, colored by a compound called chamazulene^{[4, 5]}.

Origins and history

German chamomile is an upright annual, usually no more than about 2 feet tall, with finely divided leaves^{[2, 4]}. Its small flower heads have a ring of white rays around a golden-yellow center, and the plant has an apple-like scent^{[2, 5, 6, 12]}. It grows naturally from the islands of Macaronesia and North Africa across Europe and temperate Asia as far as Indochina^{[1, 2]}. It has since spread far beyond that range and now grows wild in North and South America, including Peru, and in Australia and New Zealand^[1].

Chamomile is one of the oldest herbs known^[7]. It was described in ancient writings and was an important herb in ancient China, Egypt, Greece and Rome^{[3, 4]}. The ancient Greek author Dioscorides mentioned it, and it has held its place in European herbal tradition ever since, from the great German herbals of Hieronymus Bock (1539) and Leonhard Fuchs (1543) to the present day^{[5, 13]}. The Greek name passed into Latin as chamomilla^[6], and when Carl Linnaeus named the species in 1753, he kept it: Matricaria chamomilla^{[1, 2]}. Many books still use the later names Matricaria recutita and Chamomilla recutita, which botanists now regard as names for the same plant^{[1, 3]}.

Chamomile tea, made by steeping the dried flower heads in hot water, is the most popular way to enjoy the plant, and more than a million cups are drunk every day^{[2, 7]}. In Spanish-speaking countries the same cup goes by the name manzanilla^{[8, 10]}.

Traditional uses

Chamomile has been tested in a number of small clinical studies in people^{[3, 4]}, and its tradition as a gentle tea is one of the oldest in the world^{[3, 7]}.

• A relaxing cup

  Chamomile tea has long been taken to help people unwind. Chamomile helps you relax.*^{[3, 4]}

• Digestive comfort

  Chamomile tea is a classic of European tradition for the stomach and digestion. Chamomile supports digestive comfort.*^{[4, 13]}

• A bedtime tradition

  A cup of chamomile at bedtime is a custom old enough to appear in a 1902 children's book^[11]. For occasional sleeplessness.*^{[4, 7]}

Plant compounds

Chamomile flower heads contain an essential oil rich in α-bisabolol and bisabolol oxides, along with chamazulene, the compound that makes the distilled oil blue; it forms during steam distillation from matricin, a compound in the flowers^{[4, 5]}. The flowers also contain flavonoids, notably apigenin, together with luteolin^{[4, 5, 7]}, and coumarins such as herniarin and umbelliferone^[5].