Roman chamomile
Common or true chamomile, English and Scotch chamomile in commerce; Spanish manzanilla, the little apple; Saxon maythen; Chamaemelum nobile, formerly Anthemis nobilis of Linnaeus; in pharmacy Chamomillae romanae flos
- Known today as
- Chamaemelum nobile, a low, creeping, downy, greyish-green perennial of dry commons and sandy soil, a foot high in flower, its leaves cut into threads that give the whole plant a feathery look. The flower heads, from late July to September, are like a daisy’s with about eighteen white rays round a conical yellow centre. Grieve distinguishes the single wild form, ‘Scotch chamomile,’ from the double garden form, ‘English chamomile,’ which the British Pharmacopoeia preferred. German chamomile, Matricaria chamomilla, is a different plant with its own entry, Chamomile.
- Kind
- Plant, in 2 older authorities
- Constituents
- nobilin, apigenin, angelic acid
- Earliest authority here
- Nicholas Culpeper (1616–1654)
- In other databases
- Plants of the World Online · GBIF · Wikidata
Caution. Not for anyone sensitive to plants of the daisy family, Asteraceae, nor for children under twelve, for want of data. LiverTox, which treats both chamomiles together, finds that despite wide use chamomile “has not been convincingly linked to instances of clinically apparent liver injury.”
Roman chamomile: what was it used for?
The tea of the English household. Grieve calls the infusion “an old-fashioned but extremely efficacious remedy for hysterical and nervous affections in women,” with “a wonderfully soothing, sedative and absolutely harmless effect,” and reports it held “the sole certain remedy for nightmare”; with ginger and alkalies the cold infusion was a stomachic for flatulent colic, heartburn, and loss of appetite, a strong warm infusion an emetic, and the flowers, with crushed poppy heads, a fomentation for swellings and neuralgia. She advised making the tea in a covered vessel, since evaporation impairs it.
Roman chamomile: what does modern science say?
The European Medicines Agency’s herbal committee accepts the flower as a traditional herbal medicine, “exclusively based upon long-standing use,” for the symptomatic treatment of mild, spasmodic complaints of the stomach and gut, including bloating and flatulence (monograph of 2011). Its assessment report finds 0.6 to 2.4 per cent of a complex volatile oil, rich in esters of angelic and tiglic acid, with bitter sesquiterpene lactones of the nobilin group, flavonoids built on apigenin, and coumarins. The reviews of chamomile trials read for this entry all concern the German plant, and a 2025 review of adverse events across 72 trials expressly excluded Roman chamomile.
Pharmacognosy & Toxicology
- Constituents
- nobilinthe bitter sesquiterpene lactones are of its group
- apigenin ChEMBLon which its flavonoids are built
- angelic acidesters of angelic and tiglic acid make much of the volatile oil, 0.6 to 2.4 per cent
- Mechanism
- Not established in the sources read for this entry.
- Standing
- European Union herbal monograph (2011): traditional use, “exclusively based upon long-standing use,” for mild spasmodic complaints of the stomach and gut.
- European Medicines Agency, Committee on Herbal Medicinal Products. European Union herbal monograph on Chamomillae romanae flos (Roman Chamomile Flower). EMA/HMPC/560734/2010, 22 November 2011. Read in full · the text read
- European Medicines Agency, Committee on Herbal Medicinal Products. Assessment report on Chamomillae romanae flos. EMA/HMPC/560906/2010, 22 November 2011. Read in part · the text read
- LiverTox: Clinical and Research Information on Drug-Induced Liver Injury, “Chamomile.” National Institute of Diabetes and Digestive and Kidney Diseases, updated 2022. NCBI Bookshelf. Read in full · the text read
Constituent names open the compound’s record at PubChem, and “ChEMBL” beside a name opens its record at ChEMBL, the European Bioinformatics Institute’s database of bioactive molecules. Where a mechanism line was checked against ChEMBL (ChEMBL 37, read 1 October 2026), the check is shown with the measured value and its source paper, or says plainly that nothing has been measured. Doses are as the references give them, for description only; this is not medical advice. Each source carries the result of its check against Crossref, PubMed, or the authority’s page: see Verification.
Roman chamomile: what lore surrounds it?
The name is Greek, ‘ground apple,’ from the plant’s scent of apples, and the Spaniards call it manzanilla, little apple, a name they give also to one of their lightest sherries, flavoured with it. Trodden, it gives up its scent before it is seen, so it was a strewing herb of the Middle Ages and planted in green walks, and walking on it seems to do it good: ‘Like a camomile bed, The more it is trodden The more it will spread.’ It was called “the ‘Plant’s Physician,’” Grieve says, for the belief that a sickly plant would recover with chamomile set near it. Folkard adds that in Germany the flowers were thought once to have been soldiers who died accursed for their sins, and that the Romans thought it cured the bites of serpents.
Roman chamomile: what did the older authorities say?
- Nicholas Culpeper
- “It is so well known every where, that it is but lost time and labour to describe it.” A decoction drunk takes away stitches in the side; bathing in one “takes away weariness, eases pains, to what part of the body soever they be applied”; it eases colic and the stone and gently provokes urine, and “The flowers boiled in lye, are good to wash the head.” The Egyptians, he reports from one Nechessor, dedicated it to the Sun because it cured agues, “and they were like enough to do it, for they were the arrantest apes in their religion that I ever read of.”
- William Turner, as Grieve quotes him
- “It hath floures wonderfully shynynge yellow and resemblynge the appell of an eye . . . the herbe may be called in English, golden floure.” Scarce in Germany, he says, it grew wild in England on Richmond green and Brentford green.
Sources
- Grieve, M. A Modern Herbal, “Chamomiles.” As published on botanical.com. Read in full · the text read
- Culpeper, N. The Complete Herbal, “Camomile.” Project Gutenberg, 49513. Read in part · the text read
- Folkard, R. (1884). Plant Lore, Legends, and Lyrics, “Chamomile.” Project Gutenberg, 44638. Read in part · the text read
- European Medicines Agency, Committee on Herbal Medicinal Products. European Union herbal monograph on Chamomillae romanae flos (Roman Chamomile Flower). EMA/HMPC/560734/2010, 22 November 2011. Read in full · the text read
- European Medicines Agency, Committee on Herbal Medicinal Products. Assessment report on Chamomillae romanae flos. EMA/HMPC/560906/2010, 22 November 2011. Read in part · the text read
- Ostovar M, et al. (2025). Chamomile: A systematic review of adverse events. Complementary therapies in medicine. PMID 40374153. Abstract read · the text read
- LiverTox: Clinical and Research Information on Drug-Induced Liver Injury, “Chamomile.” National Institute of Diabetes and Digestive and Kidney Diseases, updated 2022. NCBI Bookshelf. Read in full · the text read
Verification
- Checked
- October 1, 2026
- Passes
- Every sentence read against its sources, in the pass over the remaining 343 entries
- The Standing line checked against the authority it names (EMA, WHO, FDA, CITES, Commission E)
- Every dated or regulatory claim checked by category across the database
- Sources
- 7 cited: 3 read in full, 3 read in part, 1 abstract read. 1 with the abstract on file.
- Corrections
- None were needed.
What was checked, how, and what was found is set out on the Verification page. A checked source is one whose record was found; it does not make the entry medical advice.
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Cite This Entry
Version 1 · first published October 16, 2026
- Chicago
“Roman chamomile.” In Materia Medica, edited by B. C. P. Statema. Version 1. The Thinking Press, 2026–. Last modified October 16, 2026. https://thethinkingpress.org/materia-medica/roman-chamomile.
- MLA
“Roman chamomile.” Materia Medica, edited by B. C. P. Statema, version 1, The Thinking Press, 16 Oct. 2026, thethinkingpress.org/materia-medica/roman-chamomile. Accessed 17 Oct. 2026.
- APA
Roman chamomile. (2026, October 16). In B. C. P. Statema (Ed.), Materia medica (Version 1). The Thinking Press. Retrieved October 17, 2026, from https://thethinkingpress.org/materia-medica/roman-chamomile
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See Also
Sharing apigenin
Achillea millefolium · Passiflora incarnata · Agrimonia eupatoria · Pilosella officinarum
Also in Nicholas Culpeper
Rosemary rice water in Nicholas Culpeper · Rest-harrow in Nicholas Culpeper · Rupturewort in Nicholas Culpeper · Red roses in Nicholas Culpeper · everything Nicholas Culpeper names →
Also in M. Grieve
Rosebay willowherb in M. Grieve · Pokeweed in M. Grieve · Peppermint in M. Grieve · everything M. Grieve names →
Drawing on the same sources: Grieve, Culpeper, Folkard
Rosemary · Round birthwort · Radish · Savin · the bibliography →
Nearby in the alphabet
The Roman Ritual (issued by Pope Paul V in 1614, the year of Canale’s treatise) · Rocket (salad rocket) · Roquefort mould (The blue mould of blue cheeses) · Rhubarb (Rheum officinale and R) · Rosary (Strings of prayer beads) · Rhodiola · Rose
Historical description, not medical advice.
