Description: Annual herb.
Leaves cauline, finely dissected, alternate.
Inflorescence terminal, heads solitary or few in a loose corymb, long-pedunculate. Heads hemispherical, radiate; involucral bracts with broad scarious margins, herbaceous, imbricate, 2- or 3-seriate, subequal; receptacle conical with conspicuous narrow scales. Ray florets white, female or sterile, 1-seriate, ligulate, style branches linear with papillose apices or absent. Disc florets yellow, tubular, 5-merous, bisexual, fertile; corolla narrow-campanulate, anthers obtuse at the base with ovate apical appendages; style branches broadly linear, truncate with papillose apices.
Achenes all similar, obovoid, symmetrically 4- or 5-angled, ribbed, glabrous; pappus a minute crown or border at the apex.
Distribution and occurrence: World: 130 species, Europe, Mediterranean & SW Asia. Australia: 3 species (naturalized), Qld, N.S.W., Vic., S.A.
Text by D. W. Hardin
Taxon concept:
| | Key to the species | |
| 1 | Plant hardly aromatic when crushed; achenes smoothly ribbed | Anthemis arvensis |
| Plant foetid when crushed; achenes tuberculate | Anthemis cotula |
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