Matricaria aurea (L.) Sch. Bip.

Annual, prostrate to erect, branched, up to 20 cm tall, glabrous or with short sparse whitish hairs. Leaves shortly petiolate to ± sessile, with rhachis and petiole slightly dilated and semi-amplexicaule towards the base, linear-lanceolate to oblong, (0.7) 1.5 – 3 (-5) cm long, 2-3-pinnatisect into linear-filiform, c. 0.2 mm wide, apically shortly cartilaginous mucronulate ultimate segments. Capitula discoid, heterogamous, globose, 5 – 6 mm across, pedunculate, solitary or 2-3 in a ± corymb. Involucre broadly napiform, phyllaries oblong, 2 – 2.5 mm long, glabrous, margins and obtuse apices broadly brown scarious or sometimes whitish membranous. Receptacle sharply conical. Florets yellow, all tubular; marginal female and fewer than the disc-florets, with c. 1 mm long, irregularly 2-toothed with long exserted styles; disc-florets slightly constricted in the middle, dilated upwards into a 4-lobed limb. Cypselas oblong to ovoid, 0.5 – 0.7 mm long, brownish, mildly 3-ribbed. Pappus absent.

Distribution: South Europe, North Africa, Middle East, SW Asia to Central Asia.

Fl. Per.: May-July.

In silty soils and silt-floored basins and as weed in gardens or near gardens with loamy-silt in Kashmir, Northern Punjab and North West Frontier Province.

Cotula aurea Loefl., Iter Hisp. 163. 1758; Hook. f., Fl. Brit. Ind. 3: 316. 1881; R.R.Stewart, Ann. Cat. Vasc. Pl. W. Pak. & Kashm.735. 1972; Chamomilla aurea (Loefl.) Gay ex Cosson & Kralik, Cat. Pl. Syrie Palaest. 10. 1854; Kay in Tutin et al., Fl. Eruop. 4: 167. 1976; Perideraea aurea (Loefl.) Wilk., in Wilk. & Lange, Prodr. Fl. Hisp. 2: 90. 1870.