POLISH VARIETY OF COMMON CAMOMILE

Camomile ranks as the best flower raw material on the world pharmaceutical market. It belongs to a few plants which are in growing demand every year. The reason is not only because of its big adaptability, but also its wide usage in the pharmaceutical, food and cosmetic industry.

During the seventies, in most European countries a lot of research was done in order to achieve a big flower camomile variety, and to improve economic effects of camomile cultivation. A large flower variety "Bodegold" was grown in Germany, while in Czechoslovakia first a variety "Bohemia", then "Koszyce I" and "Koszyce II". A variety "Budekalasz" was grown in Hungary and "Zloty Lan" in Poland.

Recently a variety "Manzana" and Slovakian "Bona", with their different chemical composition of the essential oil, are well known. All the tetraploid varieties characterize with larger size of their capitulars. The habit of plants and the chemical value of the raw material are different due to an initial material used for polyploidization. Dozen years of agrotechnical research on tetraploid varieties, done by many authors, proved that the varieties did not require any special conditions compared to the diploid forms.