A community of the curious
One Arctic flower. A thousand years of folklore. Almost no science. Let's change that together.
We are enthusiasts of the Icelandic sea mayweed — the flower the sagas named after the brightest of the gods. We don't have all the answers about this plant. That's exactly why we're here.
The Plant
Tripleurospermum maritimum — sea mayweed, in Icelandic Baldursbrá — is a chamomile-like flower that grows on the sandy, gravelly, salt-blasted coasts of the North Atlantic. In Iceland it is considered an ancient introduction, likely arriving with the first settlers, and it still favours the edges: beaches, drift lines, disturbed ground, places where little else volunteers. It tolerates salt spray that would kill most plants — a true halophyte, blooming in July within metres of the waterline.
Its name comes straight from the Prose Edda, written around 1220, where Snorri Sturluson describes the god Baldur:
“He is so fair of feature, and so bright, that light shines from him. A certain herb is so white that it is likened to Baldr's brow; of all grasses it is whitest, and by it thou mayest judge his fairness.” — Prose Edda, Gylfaginning ch. 22 (Brodeur translation, 1916)
A thousand years later, the name stuck across the Nordics — baldersbrå in Sweden and Norway, baldursbrá here. Few plants carry a literary pedigree this old. Fewer still carry this little modern research. That gap is what this community exists to close.
Common Folk Knowledge
Documented traditional uses, reported by the Icelandic Institute of Natural History and the University of Iceland's Science Web. Tradition is not proof — but it is data about what people believed worth trying for centuries.
In Icelandic folk medicine, Baldursbrá was above all a women's herb. Old folk names make that plain: fuðarjurt ("womb herb") and móðurjurt ("mother herb"). It was used to regulate menstruation, to help expel the afterbirth, and to stem bleeding. A tea of the flowers was considered strengthening for the heart, sweat-inducing, and worm-expelling. A leaf laid near the ear was a toothache remedy; the plant bound around the head was tried against headache. In hard childbirth it was drunk in wine.
Modern Icelandic herbalists, such as Anna Rósa Róbertsdóttir in Icelandic Herbs and Their Medicinal Uses (2016), still record it among the country's traditional herbs, used much like its cousin chamomile, particularly for the skin.
The folklore record keeps stranger company too, faithfully preserved by the University of Iceland's Science Web. Baldursbrá hidden under a tablecloth would make an unfaithful man choke on his food. A young woman seated on the plant could not rise unless she was a virgin. Placed under your pillow, it would show you in a dream who had stolen from you.
We don't endorse the tablecloth test. We do love that a thousand years of Icelanders thought this little flower was powerful enough to try.
Existing Studies
The first dedicated phytochemical study of sea mayweed appeared in 2025. Its authors note that almost no prior information existed on the species. No human trials exist. Here is the honest state of the literature.
Lemoine et al. (Marine Drugs, 2025) ran the first thorough phytochemical study of T. maritimum: antioxidant activity, anti-inflammatory effects in macrophage cells, strong α-glucosidase inhibition, and skin-relevant enzyme inhibition. They found dicaffeoylquinic acid, matricaria lactone — and a brand-new compound they named tripleurospermine.
Marine Drugs, 2025 · PMC12654308 · lab results only, unvalidated in humans
DNA phylogeny (PLOS ONE, 2018) confirms Tripleurospermum is a separate genus from true chamomile. A 2025 comparison found its close relative T. inodorum carries none of chamomile's famous bisabolol or chamazulene — but higher flavonoid content and stronger antioxidant readings in vitro.
PLOS ONE 2018 · Compounds (MDPI) 2025
For T. inodorum: an apigenin-rich extract showed anti-inflammatory and antibiofilm activity in vitro (Inflammopharmacology, 2025), and one rat study (Plants, 2024) reported paw-edema inhibition comparable to diclofenac. Single studies, small scale — interesting, unproven.
Inflammopharmacology 2025 · Plants (Basel) 2024
The ecology is solid science: a salt-tolerant halophyte of sand and shingle shores, growing within two metres of the waterline, tolerating roughly 40% seawater salinity in glasshouse tests and reported to withstand high heavy-metal soils. Iceland's coastal form even has its own subspecies, phaeocephalum.
Biologia 2014 · BSBI · Flora of the Canadian Arctic
The Co-Founder
His uncle talked about Baldursbrá constantly — at family dinners, on drives along the coast, to anyone who would listen and most who wouldn't. Ari, like any sensible teenager, filed it under harmless obsession. An old man and his weed.
Then, at fourteen, Ari caught a brutal case of strep throat. Fever, razor blades on every swallow, the works. Late one miserable night, out of pure desperation, he dug out some of his uncle's leftover dried Baldursbrá and stirred it into a bowl of yogurt. Within about forty-five minutes, the pain eased — dramatically. He slept through the night for the first time in days.
“I know exactly what a skeptic would say — placebo, coincidence, the illness turning on its own. I've said it all to myself. That's why I want to study this plant properly, not just believe in it.”
That night changed the direction of his life. It didn't make him a believer — it made him curious, which he'd tell you is better. Today, every Sunday during the plant's narrow seasonal window, Ari walks the shore and handpicks enough Baldursbrá to last the winter, exactly the way his uncle taught him. And he's looking for people to investigate it with.
The Harvest
Baldursbrá is a delicate wild product. It can't be farmed to a schedule, rushed, or stockpiled. In late Icelandic summer there is a brief moment when the flowers are exactly right — and that's the whole year's supply.
The 2026 harvest was handpicked exactly seven weeks after the summer solstice, under the midnight sun, on the Grótta shore at the tip of Seltjarnarnes — flower by flower, by hand, from fully wild plants, then naturally cured the traditional way. No cultivation, no machines, no additives. What was picked in those days is all there is until next summer.
The Whole Point
This site exists to find the other curious ones — foragers, chemists, herbalists, historians, skeptics. People who will read a paper, brew a tea, dig up an old manuscript, run an assay, and report back. If you've learned anything about this plant, or want to, write to Ari directly. He answers.
Write to Ariari@baldursbra.org — share your research, your family's stories, or your doubts.
For Members
We're not a shop, and this isn't a product launch. But community members can request a small share of the harvest while it lasts — because studying a plant is easier with the plant in hand.
5 grams of wild, handpicked, naturally cured Baldursbrá from Grótta, in our envelope. Shipped worldwide by DHL, strictly while supplies last. Available to mailing-list members only.
Step 1 — join the mailing list to unlock
Occasional letters about the plant, the research, and next year's harvest. No spam, ever.
✓ You're on the list — order unlocked
One envelope per member. When the harvest runs out, it's gone until next summer.