Question

Which plant is described by these clues? Its genus honours a warrior-hero of the Trojan War who, legend says, packed the crushed leaves onto his soldiers' wounds to staunch the bleeding. Its species name means 'thousand-leaf', a nod to foliage cut so finely it seems to hold countless divisions. Each soft, feathery leaf is {bipinnate} to tripinnate, divided two or three times over into a haze of thread-like segments. What passes for a single small flower is really a tiny {capitulum} - a packed head of minute florets - and dozens of these crowd together in one cluster. Each little head is ringed by just three to eight short, broad ray {floret}s around a small pale disc. Bruise any part and it gives off a sharp, camphorous, herbal scent. The many heads are lifted into a firm, flat-topped {corymb} 2 to 5 inches (5 to 13 cm) across. It colonises open meadows, prairies, and roadsides on lean, dry soils, creeping outward through shallow {rhizome}s. Wiry, angular stems clothed in fine white wool rise 12 to 36 inches (30 to 90 cm) tall. Folk medicine made it the classic battlefield wound-herb and 'nosebleed' remedy, the rolled leaves tucked into the nostril to stem bleeding. A drought-proof cottage-garden and meadow perennial: ferny grey-green foliage below dense, flat-topped tables of tiny white (sometimes pink) flower-heads from June to September, long famed as an ancient wound-staunching herb.

Accepted Answer

Achillea millefolium

Name That Plant #069