Kansas Wildflowers and Grasses

OX-EYE DAISY

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Leucanthemum vulgare Lam.

[=Chrysanthemum leucanthemum L.]

Montgomery County, Kansas

Perennial

Height: 8-40 inches

Family: Asteraceae - Sunflower Family

Flowering Period: May, June

Also Called:

Marguerite, white daisy.

Stems:

Erect, simple or few-branched, glabrous or lightly hairy.

Leaves:

Alternate, mostly basal, pinnately lobed or incised; basal and lower stem leaves oblanceolate to narrowly egg-shaped, 1.6 to 4.8 inches long including stalk; margins with shallow, rounded teeth to lobed or cleft; upper leaves progressively smaller, becoming sessile, toothed to entire.

Inflorescences:

Solitary heads or few at ends of branches, terminal; heads 1.2 to 2.4 inches across; stalks long, slender.

Flowers:

Bracts narrow, overlapping in several series, margins brown; ray florets 15-35, 2/5 to 2/5 inch long, white, 3-toothed at tip; disk florets tubular, corollas yellow.

Fruits:

Achene, less than 1/12 inch long, more or less 10-ribbed, pappus absent, enclosing small seed.

Habitat:

Roadsides, waste areas, meadows, fields, prairies, and along railroads.

Distribution:

Chiefly east 1/2 of Kansas.

Origin:

Native of Europe and Asia. Escaped from cultivation and now naturalized in many areas.

Forage Value:

Horses, sheep and goats will browse ox-eye daisy, but cattle avoid it due the bitter taste.

Uses:

Native Americans brewed a tea of the dried flowers, stem and roots and used it as an eyewash and a wash for chapped hands. Ox-eye daisy and dandelion flowers were used to make wines and tonics.

Comments:

Ox-eye daisy can be weedy. The disk florets bloom in succession from the edge of the disk to the center.

Ox-eye daisy florets