Answer to 2024 3rd Quarter “What Herb am I?

What Herb am I? – Author Amy Watson, MA, VetMB, MRCVS, GDVCHM, CVA, ACVCHM, CCRT

I am native to western, central, and northern Europe, but can be found naturalized in most temperate regions. I prefer field-like habitats and can be found commonly in lawns in the Spring/Summer in the United Kingdom, where children use me to make garlands, necklaces, and bracelets. I am from the family Asteraceae and I am a perennial herbaceous plant growing up to 20cm in height. I have rosettes of small rounded or spoon-like leaves that stay flat to the ground, and white flowers with a yellow central disc florette. I exhibit heliotropism – my flowers follow the position of the sun in the sky – and my whole head closes at night and opens in the morning, which may be where my name comes from a corruption of “day’s eye’.

Whilst I am generally considered a weed or am used by children for ‘jewelry making’, I can be eaten raw in sandwiches, salads, and soups, used as a tea and as a vitamin supplement – I contain nearly as much vitamin C as lemons. Medicinally I am a vulnerary and can be of great relief when used as an ointment for bruises as well as soft tissue injuries, and I have colloquial name of ‘bruisewort’. I can be used topically and internally and unlike arnica, I can be used on broken skin. I have been called ‘gardeners friends’ because after a long day of gardening, applying me as an ointment to aching joints helps relieve discomfort. I am a good anti-inflammatory. I am also an expectorant, containing saponins that act as an antitussive as well as an expectorant. I can be made into infusions or tinctures and taken internally to relieve coughs and catarrh. Care must be taken when giving me orally as the saponins that I contain can irritate the stomach; moderate doses should be fine but if the patient experiences nausea then lower the dose or stop taking me. Energetically I am astringent and cooling and by some I am considered energetically to be playful and joyful, so I am, in the human world, good for those patients weighed down by life who have developed a constriction in the chest – I encourage a lightening of spirit and opening of the chest area. I am also good for children experiencing loneliness.

Culpepper said to me, “A decoction made of them, and drank, helpeth to cure wounds made in the hollowness of the breast. The same also cureths all ulcers and pustules in the mouth of tongue, or in the secret parts.” Mixed with agrimony, Culpepper described how I was beneficial for sciatica, gout, and palsy.

The name of this herbal is Bellis perennis, the Daisy, also known as the ‘lawn daisy’, the ‘English daisy’, or ‘common daisy’.