(also known as Dog Daisy, Moon Daisy or Marguerite)
Like so many of the more conspicuous plants
of Magog Down, ox-eye daisies are members of the dandelion family
(Compositae). Their handsome flowers, sometimes more than two inches
across, are held high on stems up to two feet tall which spring from rosettes
of leaves close to the ground. The scientific name, Chrysanthemum
leucanthemum, translates from the Greek as 'Golden-flower white flower' and
it is the contrast between the golden disc florets and the white ray florets
which makes the plant so attractive.So handsome is the plant that the old Norsemen associated it with Baldur the Beautiful, giving it the name of 'Baldur's brow'. In Christian times it, like many other midsummer flowers became linked with St. John the Baptist (feast day 24th June) after whom it is named in many European languages. In England, however, it seems more frequently to have been linked with St. Mary Magdalen (hence the name 'maudlin-wort' by which it was known to the herbalist Gerard). This may have been partly due to that saint's feast day also occurring in midsummer (22nd June) and partly to the supposed efficacy of the plant in treating 'women's complaints'. Other medical uses of the plant have included the application of its flowers or bruised leaves to reduce swellings, its infusion to make a reputedly excellent drink (when sweetened with honey) to relieve chronic coughs and bronchial catarrhs, its use as a decoction in ale to cure jaundice, and (my favourite) its use as a decoction to cure "all Diseases that are occasion'd by drinking cold beer when the body is hot"!
Ox-eye daisies are found throughout Europe and into Russian Asia. It is most frequently met with in rough pastures or on roadside verges but in the past it was considered an important weed of arable land. Too acrid to be palatable to cows, it is nevertheless eaten by horses and its seeds (200 of which can be produced by a single flower) can be spread in horse dung. In the days of horse husbandry it was thus easily spread from pasture land to arable fields.
May 1996
Ox-eye Daisies : Magog Down, May 2003