Tansy.Tanacetum vulgare.
Found in July and August, chiefly along walls and fences, although occasionally in fields.
The stout and sturdy stalk, which grows to be sometimes 4 feet high, is branching and leafy, tough-fibred, round and smooth. Of a rich, light green color.
The large and long leaf is so deeply cleft into many narrow, oblong divisions, and the margin is so regularly toothed, that it bears the appearance of a curly feather; the vigorous curving midrib is an important feature; its texture is coarse, and it is pungently odorous. The color is a full, rich, dark green.
The flowers are very small, of a strong, full yellow, tending slightly toward green; packed tightly into a flat head, like a button with a little dent in the middle. The heads, enclosed in a shallow, yellow-green leafy cup, are set on slender, light green stems, and arranged in large, loose terminal clusters.
Growing in thickly-settled communities the Tansy plant forms a well known member of the roadside tenantry with its noble dark foliage, luxuriant and usually free from blight, and strong stalks topped profusely by the flower clusters, whose yellow is toned to a remarkable harmony with green. On a hot day the smell of the Tansy may be perceived at a considerable distance. “In the spring time are made with the leaves hereof, newly sprung up, and with eggs, cakes or Tansies, which be pleasant in taste, and goode for the stomacke,” says Gerarde, and echoes of rules for Tansy-cakes come to us from the records of early New England house-wives.