Ox-eye Daisy

This week, we’re looking at a couple of edible non-native wildflowers that are in season right now. On Monday, it was Tufted Vetch; today we have Ox-eye Daisy (Leucanthemum vulgare).

Most people are familiar with Ox-eye Daisy’s distinctive white petals (ray flowers) surrounding the golden-yellow centre (disk flowers). This cheerful-looking plant can be found across the Island, pushing up through cracks in sidewalks, growing among the stone landscaping of highway dividers, lining roadsides, and invading pastures and grasslands.

The only real look-alike we have is Scentless Chamomile (Tripleurospermum inodorum), but that plant has very finely divided, feathery leaves, unlike the spoon-shaped, toothed foliage of Ox-eye Daisy (inset photo). The similar-sounding Daisy Fleabane (Erigeron strigosus) has much smaller flowers, with narrow, linear ray petals, and isn’t easily mistaken for Ox-eye Daisy. (Both of these other plants are edible, just not palatable).

Ox-eye Daisy was introduced to North America from Europe in the 1700s – both intentionally as an ornamental and accidentally by contamination in imported seeds – and it quickly spread. Here on PEI, the plant was described as “one of the worst weeds” in 1902 and was well-established tip-to-tip by 1950. Ox-eye Daisy’s ability to spread aggressively has led to it being designated a noxious weed in four Canadian provinces and at least six US States.

While I don’t recommend adding Ox-eye Daisy to areas it doesn’t already grow, I do endorse introducing it to your kitchen. Leaves have a spinach-like flavour, but I like the flowers best: you can pop the whole thing in your mouth and experience the savoury taste that’s a bit like a cross between a mild radish and a pea pod. Those flowers make lovely additions to salads and sandwiches, or you can dip them in batter and deep fry as a fritter. I also like to put an Ox-eye Daisy flower onto a cracker topped with cream cheese for an eye-catching hors d’oeuvre.

Whether you admire Ox-eye Daisy as an attractive wildflower or revile it as an invasive weed, give it a taste. You may be pleasantly surprised by the flavour of this part of PEI Untamed!