Tansy Flowers: facts and uses (Пижма: интересные факты)

Travelling gives a chance to observe not only monumental buildings, marvelous parks, interesting people, it also provides us with lots of knowledge about nature. 

Пижма, common tansy in summer

Geography of tansy flowers

Tansy flowers are often met in Europe and Asia. Tansy grows in the countryside: in the meadows, near rivers, in the birch forest, gardens and so on.

Name of tansy flowers

The name of tansy flowers was derived from the Greek word “athanasia”. The word is translated as IMMORTALITY. So, for thousands of years, tansy was a special embalming agent.

Tansy Flowers and different cultures

However, tansies helped not only embalm Egyptian pharaohs but also preserve meat in the Northern lands by Northern peoples. Along with magical purposes the Slavs used tansy to get rid of the intestinal worms. Due to the high content of essential oils, tansy was one of the strongest repellents in the old days. Sharp smell saved Slavic homes from various insects. Tansy was called the herb of Veles in honour of Veles or Volos, a major Slavonic god of water, earth, forest and a wild nature.

Other names of tansy flowers

The smell of tansy cannot be mixed with anything else. Take a yellow tansy button and push it with your fingers…quite a smell I should say! No wonder tansy has such names as Bitter buttons, Stinking buttons or Bachelor’s buttons.

Uses of tansy flowers

In Ancient Greece tansy was cultivated for medical purposes. Much later Benedictine monks grew the plant for treating people for fevers, rheumatism and sores. In the Middle Ages this plant was widely used to induce miscarriages. Tansy is thought to solve the troubles with stomach, bladder, poor appetite or even rapid heartbeat. Despite of its powers, tansy flower is toxic. Nowadays, it is strongly not recommended to drink a tansy tea or eat the plant.

Tansy extracts are used in beverages, perfume and in the natural production of green dye. 

More about wild flowers on https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hdZqo-e0LXA 

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