Literary notes about chamomile (AI summary)
In literature, chamomile frequently transcends its identity as merely an herb to become a subtle color that evokes the soft, natural hues of its blooms and extracts. For example, its oil is described as having a blue tint that slowly shifts into a greenish-yellow, suggesting a dynamic interplay of cool and warm tones that reflects nature’s quiet beauty [1]. Similarly, authors use the delicate appearance of chamomile petals in similes—likening a character’s features to “chamomile-petals” to imply a gentle, alabaster quality imbued with warmth and light [2]. In these ways, chamomile serves as a metaphor for calmness and understated elegance in literary imagery.
- The oil from Anthemis nobilis (Roman chamomile) has also a blue color which gradually becomes greenish-yellow.
— from Perfumes and Their Preparation Containing complete directions for making handkerchief perfumes, smelling-salts, sachets, fumigating pastils; preparations for the care of the skin, the mouth, the hair; cosmetics, hair dyes, and other toilet articles by George William Askinson - The girl is soft of speech, fair of form, like a branchlet of basil, with teeth like chamomile-petals and hair like halters wherefrom to hang hearts.
— from The Book of the Thousand Nights and a Night — Volume 05
