Cotula anthemoides L.

The powder of capitula warmed with oil is used as poultice for treatment of rheumatic pain.

Procumbent or decumbent, pale-green, glabrous herb with several, up to 20 cm long branches from the base. Leaves subsessile, petiole semi-amplexicaule, ovate-oblong, (1.5-) 2 – 4 (-5) x 1.5 – 3 (3.5) cm, pinnatifid to 2-pinnatisect with narrowly oblong, serrate, acute ultimate segments. Capitula subglobose, yellow, 4 – 6 mm across, solitary on filiform, 4 – 5 cm long peduncles. Involucre ± saucer shaped, phyllaries narrowly oblong, c. 1 – 1.25 x 0.5 – 0.75 mm, nerved within, membranous-margined, with obtuse scarious apices. Receptacle flat. Outer florets female with an inconspicuous corolla, c. half as long as those of disc-floret corollas, fertile. Disc-florets bisexaul, fertile, with c. 2 mm long, ± campanulate corolla, fertile. Cypselas ovate, c. 1 mm long, narrowly winged, wing c. 0.3 mm, ray-cypselas flat, broader than disc-cypselas, all pale-brown.

Distribution: China, India, Pakistan, W. Arabia, South Africa and Egypt.

Fl. Per.: March-June.

A weed in gardens in the plains and lower altitudes in Western Himalayas.