Arnica Montana

Today I saw a flower bed full of what I thought was calendula officinalis,

or pot marigold. But as I was looking for photos of it,

I realized the flowers I saw aren't actually calendula,

which looks like this:

by TeunSpaans. Licensed under Public domain via Wikimedia Commons - 

http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Calendula_officinalis_03-09-2005_15.21.56.JPG#mediaviewer

I started hunting for what those yellow-orange flowers might be

and ran across references to arnica montana,

a little-known flowering herb that I've been familiar with

 and occasionally used as an ointment a couple of decades now.

According to Wikimedia Commons, arnica has many names: 

leopard's bane, wolf's bane, mountain tobacco, and my favorite:

Celtic nard (narde being an archaic term for ointment 

prepared from a plant rhizome).

I've never seen arnica growing anywhere, 

but this is what it looks like in bloom:

"Arnica montana 180605" by Bernd Haynold - Own work. 

Licensed under Creative Commons Attribution-Share Alike 2.5 

via Wikimedia Commons - http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Arnica_montana

_180605.jpg#mediaviewer/File:Arnica_montana_180605.jpg

The cream or gel  prepared from arnica 

has been used for centuries to alleviate the discomfort of muscle sprains, 

aches, pains and  bruising. 

All that and pretty flowers too.

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