Contents:
Common Names | Parts Usually Used | Plant(s) & Culture | Where Found | Medicinal Properties | Biochemical Information
Legends, Myths and Stories | Uses | Formulas or Dosages | Warning | Resource Links | Bibliography
Scientific Names
- Tanacetum vulgare L.
- Chrysanthemum vulgare
- Compositae
- Composite family
Common Names
- Alhanasia (Greek name meaning “immortality”)
- Bachelor’s buttons
- Bitter buttons
- Common tansy
- Ginger plant
- Hindheal
- Parsley fern
- Stinking Willie
Parts Usually Used
Flowers, seeds
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Description of Plant(s) and Culture
Tansy was once valued as a pot herb. It can be recognized by its feathery leaves and clusters of bright yellow button-like flowers. Full sun or partial shade. Zones 4-9.
Tansy is an aromatic, perennial plant which is cultivated and also found growing wild. The short creeping rootstock sends an erect, nearly round, often purplish-brown stem to a height of 1-5 feet. The alternate, smooth, lanceolate, dark green, fernlike, leaves are pinnately divided, their segments acute and toothed. Blooming from July to September, the golden-yellow flowers (1/2 inch rayless buttons) grow in terminal, flattened cymes. The fruit is an achene (a small, dry fruit with one seed which is attached to the ovary wall only at one point).
Pick tansy blossoms for drying as an ornamental in dry arrangements. Do not use tansy as a tea, food, or medicine; it can be toxic.
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Where Found
Flourishes in waste places, fields, and at roadsides. Native European plant. It grows in Europe, in the United States from the Atlantic seaboard westward to Minnesota, and in Oregon and Nevada.
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Medicinal Properties
Aromatic, diaphoretic, anthelmintic, emmenogogue (assists menstrual flow), carminative (relieves intestinal gas), vermifuge (expel intestinal worms) and tonic.
Seeds: vermifuge
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Biochemical Information
Essential oil, possibly thujone, bitter principles, glycosides, tanacetin 1 and 11, acid, resin, sugar, fat and cartenoids.
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Legends, Myths and Stories
Tansy’s generic name, Tanacetum, is from the Greek word athanasia, “immortality”; in times past, coffins were filled with tansy to preserve corpses precisely because the flowers do not wilt when dried.
Tansy was mentioned in writings as early as 5,000 BC. It reached its height of popularity in the Middle Ages.
The whole plant has a camphoraceous odor. The plant is cultivated today for the oil which is so powerful that its use is not recommended except by a medical practitioner.
Used for thousands of years, until about the mid 19th century, as an embalming agent.
Tansy is still used by some cultures for culinary as well as medicinal purposes.
Tansy, a native of Europe, was one of the first plants brought to North America by European settlers; even before the Revolution it has escaped colonial gardens and was showing up along roadsides.
In old-time gardens, tansy was grown around peach trees as a preventative against insects.
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Uses
Tansy is useful in improving the circulation, and treating varicose veins. A tsp. of herb should be infused in a cupful of water, and drink the liquid twice per day or applied externally to varicose veins, bruises, minor swellings or sties. Some herbalists regard tansy as a general tonic and also is a remedy for poor appetite, ague, jaundice, sciatica, toothache, bruises, sunburn, leukorrhea, and certain forms of dropsy.
A strong remedy to promote delayed or stopped menstruation. The seeds are used to eliminate worms (pinworms). The oil is externally applied to treat injuries, bruises and rheumatic complaints.
Tansy can be poisonous even when applied externally; therefore, it is little used. Tansy can be taken in small to moderate doses only; preferably under medical supervision.
Leaves are insecticidal. Plant under fruit trees; companion to roses and raspberries. Deters flying insects, Japanese beetles, striped cucumber beetles, squash bugs, and ants.
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Formulas or Dosages
1 tsp. steeped in a cup of boiling water for 20 minutes, one cup 2 or 3 times per day. In formulas 1-3 gms.
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Warning
The essential oil derived from tansy is very powerful, drastic in action, and poisonous in overdoses.
Tansy can be poisonous even when applied externally; therefore, it is little used. An overdose of tansy oil or tea can be fatal. Oil is considered lethal.
1/2 oz. can kill in 2-4 hours. It is illegal to sell this herb as tea, food or medicine. May cause dermatitis.
Use tansy only under medical supervision.
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Resource Links
Bibliography
The Herb Book
The Herbalist Almanac
Indian Uses of Native Plants
Culpeper’s Complete Herbal & English Physician: Updated With 117 Modern Herbs
Back to Eden
Indian Herbalogy of North America
Eastern/Central Medicinal Plants
Herbal Gardening, compiled by The Robison York State Herb Garden, Cornell Plantations, Matthaei Botanical Gardens of the University of Michigan, University of California Botanical Garden, Berkeley., Pantheon Books, Knopf Publishing Group, New York, 1994, first edition
Planetary Herbology
How Indians Use Wild Plants for Food, Medicine & Crafts
American Folk Medicine
Taber’s Cyclopedic Medical Dictionary
Webster’s New World Dictionary
The Yoga of Herbs: An Ayurvedic Guide to Herbal Medicine
The Rodale Herb Book: How to Use, Grow, and Buy Nature’s Miracle Plants (An Organic gardening and farming book)
