From Achilles, the mythological Greek hero who by some accounts used this herb to staunch the wounds of Telephus.
Perennial herbs. Stems erect or ascending. Leaves basal and/or along stems, alternate, entire to once or twice divided. Capitula usually radiate, small, often many together in dense terminal corymbs, sometimes few or solitary, with stalks. Involucral bracts in a few rows, inner longer than outer. Receptacle with scales, flat to conical. Ray florets female, ligulate. Disk florets bisexual, tubular. Achenes compressed, with 2 ribs. Pappus absent.
Several species have become minor weeds in Australia.
Small capitula, usually in dense terminal corymbs.
117 species from Europe, Asia and N America.
Source: (2002). Asteraceae. In: . Horticultural Flora of South-eastern Australia. Volume 4. Flowering plants. Dicotyledons. Part 3. The identification of garden and cultivated plants. University of New South Wales Press.
Cultivars of uncertain or mixed parentage
A. millefolium × A. 'Taygetea'
Growing to about 50 cm tall, with deep rose flowers. ['Apfelblüte']
A. clypeolata × A. filipendulina
To 1 m tall with dark yellow flower heads.
A hybrid that was raised in 1952 by Miss R.B. Pole, UK, as a self-sown seedling.
A. millefolium × A. 'Taygetea'
Flowers double and white. ['The Beacon']
Flowers dark lavender. ['Fawcett Beauty']
A. millefolium × A. 'Taygetea'
To about 70 cm tall, the flowers yellow. ['Hoffnung']
A. clypeolata ×A. 'Taygetea'
Leaves silvery grey-hairy and the flowers bright yellow. A hybrid raised by Alan Bloom, UK.
Leaves feathery grey; florets lemon yellow.
A. taygetea Boiss. & Heldr. is different from this cultivar and is referable to A. aegyptiaca L.