Daisy Family Flower Tanacetum vulgare (tansy, Asteraceae)

Tanacetum vulgare (tansy, Asteraceae)

I find myself thinking about plants. Here, Tanacetum vulgare (tansy, Asteraceae), Germany, 2016. It is in the Chamomile tribe of the daisy family. It has been on my mind because I was recently looking through our herbarium for specimens that have mature fruit on them, and while we have quite a few specimens there aren't any that fulfill that particular criterion.

Many daisies are usually collected in flower because they look rather less attractive in fruit, which is rather ironic given that there are many subgroups where fruits are extremely important for identification, e.g. among the dandelion tribe. But often you will at least get mature fruits as by-catch; the whole plant is collected because one head was in flower, but others lower down are already fruiting. In this case, however, the specimen is generally a single stem, and all its heads in the terminal corymbose panicle are at about the same stage, meaning none of them are fruiting. A bit frustrating.