Whitebuttons

Anacyclus clavatus, white-buttons or mat chamomile, is an annual herb in the family Asteraceae native to the Mediterranean basin and North Africa, from the Iberian Peninsula and Morocco east to Greece, Turkey and the Atlantic islands. It produces a slender taproot and decumbent to ascending, branched, hairy stems 10-50 cm long, often forming low mats over disturbed soil. The alternate leaves are two- to three-pinnatisect into narrow, linear ultimate segments, giving the foliage a finely divided, ferny appearance. From spring into early summer the stems carry solitary, long-pedunculate flower heads 2-3 cm across with a rounded receptacle; white ray florets surround a domed centre of yellow disc florets, the heads later becoming markedly clavate as the receptacle elongates in fruit, accounting for the epithet clavatus. The achenes are flattened and winged. The species grows in fields, fallow ground, roadsides and ruderal Mediterranean habitats.