Maybe the cattle of Europe and western Asia, where Leucanthemum vulgare is native, once upon a time had striking yellow eyes with thick white lashes. Otherwise, it’s hard to imagine anything particularly bovine about the bloom of the flower called ox-eye daisy, pictured here growing with some vetch on the edge of the sandplain at Wellfleet Bay. This non-native garden escapee has naturalized in fields and roadsides in every single state of the Union and is considered invasive in several cattle-heavy states — cows find it downright distasteful. The specific epithet vulgare, though, refers not to any sort of grossness but instead to the flower’s ubiquity — it’s the scientific way of saying “common.”
