Stem: 1 1/2 to 3 ft. tall, leafy. Leaves: Deeply and pinnately
cleft into narrow, toothed divisions; strong scented.
Preferred Habitat - Roadsides; commonly escaped from gardens.
Flowering Season - July-September.
Distribution - Nova Scotia, westward to Minnesota, south to
Missouri and North Carolina. Naturalized from Europe.
"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 Stomache," wrote quaint old Gerarde. That these
were popular dainties in the seventeenth century we further know
through Pepys, who made a "pretty dinner" for some guests, to
wit: "A brace of stewed carps, six roasted chickens, and a jowl
of salmon, hot, for the first course; a tansy, and two neat's
tongues, and cheese, the second." Cole's "Art of Simpling,"
published in 1656, assures maidens that tansy leaves laid to soak
in buttermilk for nine days "maketh the complexion very fair."
Tansy tea, in short, cured every ill that flesh is heir to,
according to the simple faith of mediaeval herbalists - a faith
surviving in some old women even to this day.
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