Perennial of the Asteraceae family, the large daisy is native to Europe and temperate Asia, now naturalized on almost all continents. It colonizes lean meadows, embankments, roadsides, and wastelands, from the plains up to about 2,000 meters in altitude, on various substrates, rather neutral to calcareous.
It forms upright and branched clumps, reaching 30 to 80 cm in height, with dark foliage, deeply crenate to lobed, whose basal leaves are long-petioled and spatulate. The solitary capitula, borne on long slender stems, gather large immaculate white ligules around a bright yellow and well-rounded disc.
In its natural habitat, its flowering extends from May to August depending on the altitude. In cultivation, pruning after the first flowering often encourages a second wave at the end of summer.
Plant of the universal children's game — "he loves me, a little, a lot..." — it also has a long tradition of medicinal use in popular phytotherapy, notably as a vulnerary. Easy to naturalize, it self-seeds and can form large, bright white blankets in a few seasons. It thrives in ordinary, well-drained soil, in full sun.