Anthemis cotulaL.

stinking chamomile

WFO wfo-0000032964 Accepted WFO 2026-06 8 photographs CC0 / CC BY

Plate 1 figs. a–h · 8 separate observations

Anthemis cotula, photographed by Jess Mullins
fig. a Jess Mullins, CC BY 4.0 / 2022-06-10 / obs. 205044938

Every figure is a research-grade observation under CC0, CC BY or CC BY-SA, rehosted with the photographer’s name, the licence and the observation it came from. Photographs under a NonCommercial licence are excluded from this site and are never stored, which costs us a great many pictures and is not negotiable.

The specimen a real sheet, in a real collection

Herbarium
The New York Botanical Garden
Accession
02474485
Filed as
Anthemis cotula L.
Det. by
A. S. Quaresma 2015-03-01
Collected
J. da Costa Sacco 1955-11-18
Origin
BR
The sheet
View the digitised specimen (CC BY 4.0)

A real pressed plant, in a real collection, under the accession number above. Not an illustration of one. The holding institution does not serve this sheet’s image to third parties, so there is no photograph here. The record is real and the link goes to it. Where we hold no openly licensed sheet for a species this section is simply absent, and where a sheet never recorded who determined it, that field stays empty rather than being filled in. Roughly half of all herbarium sheets never recorded a determiner, which is ordinary.

Native range 54 botanical countries

Regions where Anthemis cotula is native: Algeria, Egypt, Libya, Madeira, Morocco, Tunisia, Cyprus, East Aegean Is., Iran, Iraq, Kazakhstan, Lebanon-Syria, North Caucasus, Palestine, Saudi Arabia, Sinai, Transcaucasus, Türkiye, Albania, Austria, Baleares, Baltic States, Belarus, Belgium, Bulgaria, Central European Russia, Corse, Czechia-Slovakia, Denmark, East European Russia, Finland, France, Germany, Greece, Hungary, Italy, Kriti, Krym, Netherlands, North European Russia, Northwest European Russia, Norway, NW. Balkan Pen., Poland, Portugal, Romania, Sardegna, Sicilia, South European Russia, Spain, Sweden, Switzerland, Türkiye-in-Europe, Ukraine AlgeriaEgyptLibyaMoroccoTunisiaCyprusEast Aegean Is.IranIraqKazakhstanLebanon-SyriaNorth CaucasusPalestineSaudi ArabiaSinaiTranscaucasusTürkiyeAlbaniaAustriaBaltic StatesBelarusBelgiumBulgariaCentral European RussiaCorseCzechia-SlovakiaDenmarkEast European RussiaFinlandFranceGermanyGreeceHungaryItalyKritiKrymNetherlandsNorth European RussiaNorthwest European RussiaNorwayNW. Balkan Pen.PolandPortugalRomaniaSiciliaSouth European RussiaSpainSwedenSwitzerlandTürkiye-in-EuropeUkraine MadeiraBalearesSardegna
Native distribution of Anthemis cotula, after Kew’s World Checklist of Vascular Plants. Introduced, extinct and doubtful records are excluded, so this is where the plant is from, not everywhere it now grows. Regions too small to draw at this scale are marked with a dot.
RegionTDWG codeContinent
Albania ALB EUROPE
Austria AUT
Baleares BAL
Baltic States BLT
Belarus BLR
Belgium BGM
Bulgaria BUL
Central European Russia RUC
Corse COR
Czechia-Slovakia CZE
Denmark DEN
East European Russia RUE
Finland FIN
France FRA
Germany GER
Greece GRC
Hungary HUN
Italy ITA
Kriti KRI
Krym KRY
Netherlands NET
North European Russia RUN
Northwest European Russia RUW
Norway NOR
NW. Balkan Pen. YUG
Poland POL
Portugal POR
Romania ROM
Sardegna SAR
Sicilia SIC
South European Russia RUS
Spain SPA
Sweden SWE
Switzerland SWI
Türkiye-in-Europe TUE
Ukraine UKR
Cyprus CYP ASIA-TEMPERATE
East Aegean Is. EAI
Iran IRN
Iraq IRQ
Kazakhstan KAZ
Lebanon-Syria LBS
North Caucasus NCS
Palestine PAL
Saudi Arabia SAU
Sinai SIN
Transcaucasus TCS
Türkiye TUR
Algeria ALG AFRICA
Egypt EGY
Libya LBY
Madeira MDR
Morocco MOR
Tunisia TUN

Region boundaries approximated from Natural Earth (public domain) and mapped to TDWG World Geographical Scheme for Recording Plant Distributions (WGSRPD) level-3 botanical countries (Brummitt 2001). Indicative, not the official WGSRPD geometry.

Flowering 235 in flower of 237 examined

Proportion of examined Anthemis cotula in flower, by month
Month In flower Examined Share 95% interval
Jan 24 24 100% 86% to 100%
Feb 10 10 100% 72% to 100%
Mar 13 13 100% 77% to 100%
Apr 15 16 94% 72% to 99%
May 39 39 100% 91% to 100%
Jun 53 53 100% 93% to 100%
Jul 22 22 100% 85% to 100%
Aug 16 16 100% 81% to 100%
Sep 10 11 91% 62% to 98%
Oct 2 2 too few examined
Nov 5 5 100% 57% to 100%
Dec 26 26 100% 87% to 100%

Peak flowering in Jan. Each bar is the share of Anthemis cotula observations in which someone actually recorded the reproductive state and found the plant in flower, not the raw number of flowering records. That distinction matters: people observe plants far more in spring than in winter, so a bare count of flowering records partly measures when people go outside. Dividing by the number examined removes that. 235 of 237 examined observations were in flower, every one of them research grade. The whisker on each bar is a 95% Wilson interval. One month has fewer than 5 examined observations, so no proportion is drawn for it. This is still a global aggregate and not a forecast for your garden: the same species flowers on different dates in different hemispheres. Where a species has fewer than 30 flowering records we do not draw this chart at all. Computed from 10.15468/dl.cgje2x.

Where it actually grows measured, from 1,504 observations

Condition 5th percentile Median 95th percentile
Coldest month, mean daily low -9.1 °C 4.4 °C 9.3 °C
Warmest month, mean daily high 19.6 °C 27.3 °C 34.0 °C
Annual rainfall 312 mm 653 mm 1,502 mm
Rainfall in the driest quarter 4 mm 10 mm 259 mm

It is found where winters bring hard frost. This is not care advice and it is not a forecast. It is a measurement: we sampled the climate at every one of the 1,504 research-grade observations of Anthemis cotula that carry a coordinate, and this is the range those places actually span. The 5th and 95th percentiles are used rather than the minimum and maximum, because a single cultivated specimen in a heated conservatory should not widen a tropical plant's range to the Arctic.

This is not a hardiness zone. A USDA zone is the average annual extreme minimum temperature. The figure above is the mean daily minimum of the coldest month, which is a different quantity and is typically far warmer. Reading one as the other would place a plant several zones too warm, so we do not publish a hardiness zone, because we do not have one. Climate from CHELSA V2.1 (Karger et al. 2017); occurrences from 10.15468/dl.cgje2x.

Also published as 11 synonyms

A synonym is not an error. It is a record of botanists disagreeing, in print, about where this plant belongs. Each of these was somebody’s considered answer.

  • Anthemis cotula subsp. cotula
  • Anthemis cotula subsp. psorosperma (Ten.) Arcang.
  • Anthemis cotula var. cotula
  • Anthemis foetida Lam.
  • Anthemis foetida var. foetida
  • Anthemis psorosperma Ten.
  • Anthemis ramosa Link ex Spreng.
  • Chamaemelum cotula All.
  • Maruta cotula DC.
  • Maruta cotula var. cotula
  • Maruta foetida Cass.

Sourcesevery claim on this page

  1. World Flora Online Plant List. accepted name, authority, classification. CC0. Retrieved 2026-07-12.
  2. iNaturalist. photographs and flowering annotations, CC0 / CC BY / CC BY-SA only. per photograph. Retrieved 2026-06-27.
  3. Wikidata. common name (P1843), joined on the World Flora Online identifier (P7715). CC0. Retrieved 2026-07-13.
  4. Kew, World Checklist of Vascular Plants (WCVP v16). native distribution by TDWG level-3 botanical country, and life form. CC BY 3.0. Retrieved 2026-06-04.

We publish what we can source and we say so when we cannot. This page has no care advice and no toxicity claim, because we do not yet have those from a source we can cite.