Tansy

Did you know

• Tansy flowers are flat golden buttons, not the usual daisy form—each one is a perfect coin-sized disk of yellow, with no ray petals at all, growing in dense flat-topped clusters.
• Medieval cooks added tansy to Easter cakes called 'tansies'—the bitter herb supposedly purified the body after Lent's fish-heavy diet, though it's now known to be mildly toxic.
• The plant was strewn on church floors and in coffins to repel insects—and ancient Greeks even rubbed tansy onto bodies to slow decomposition, leading to the name 'athanaton' (immortal).
• Tansy was one of the strewing herbs of choice in colonial America—a 1635 Massachusetts law required tansy to be planted at every household for its insect-repelling properties.
• The plant contains thujone, the same psychoactive compound found in absinthe—tansy was once an ingredient in homemade absinthe variants, and is responsible for both its medicinal and toxic effects.

Color meanings

Uses

• Herbal medicine
• Insect repellent
• Cottage gardens
• Heritage gardens