The WALA Plant Library
Yarrow

Synonyms for Yarrow: Bad Man’s Plaything, Bloodwort, Carpenter’s Weed, Devil’s Nettle, Devil’s Plaything, Herbe Militaris, Knight’s Milfoil, Milfoil, Nose Bleed, Old Man’s Pepper, Sanguinary, Soldier’s Woundwort, Staunchweed, Thousand Weed, Yarroway
Scientific Name: Achillea millefolium L.
Family: Compositae/Asteraceae (Daisy family)

Description:

These plants are immediately recognisable by their distinctive leaves, even in close-cropped meadows. Yarrow is closely related to chamomile and has leaves which resemble little feathers. They form a rosette that rests on the ground. From this rosette grows a stem which can reach a height of up to 60 centimetres. From June to October it bears white-looking flowers at its tip. These flowers are doubly deceiving. At first glance they look like umbels, which are clusters of florets arranged in a horizontal plane like an umbrella. However, the yarrow is not a member of the umbel-bearing Umbelliferae family, but belongs to the Asteraceae or Compositae family. And this leads us to the second deception. What looks like a single flower in the umbel-like inflorescence known as a corymb is actually made up of several small florets which are formed and arranged to look like a single flower!