Chamomile

I sleep better when I drink a little chamomile tea before I go to bed. Chamomile is a relaxant and can even "help combat depression, stress and anxiety." It also is soothing and healing for the skin. Keep a little chamomile cream around for burns and insect bites.

When I first discovered that those little flowers I saw on a dirt driveway were a useful herb, I was delighted and amazed. Close up the flower and even the knobby flower heads look very humble and even seem like they could be a noxious weed. Not at all. They are hardy little plants that frequently grow on paths and abandoned road beds. I suspect that the aggressive practice to spray herbicides along highways and roadsides have discouraged this little flower. This makes it even more special that I found several little places in my neighborhood where chamomile is blooming. The flower in the photo grew in the gravel parking lot of a nearby church. At a neighborhood park several blocks away chamomile grows in the gravel pathway.