[citation needed] It is classified in the oldest Chinese medical material, Shennong Ben Cao Jing (early modern era), in the category of superior drugs and is part of the products related to the search for immortality.

"Lightening the body" was a goal to reach the ethereal state of Immortals able to fly and "ride the clouds".

From Jin and Tang dynasties (around the 5th century AD), chrysanthemum began to be appreciated as an ornamental plant, while continuing to be used for dietary reasons.

It lists a total of 35 cultivated varieties that could be observed in the gardens near the Buddhist shrines of Longmen Grottoes.

In the 16th century, the famous physician and herbalist Li Shizhen in his Great Treaty of Medical Matter, reports a hundred cultivars.

[5] The first European author to mention chrysanthemum is Jacobus Breynius (Jacob Breyn) in 1689 in his Prodromus Plantarum Rariorum.

This merchant and botanist describes the Matricaria japonica maxima, as a very elegant flowering plant, double, pink or light red 20 and existing in several varieties.

They are the blended product of C. indicum and C. morifolium, two species of plants that grow wild in China and Japan.

To note, during the millennia and a half of cultivation, tens of thousands of different cultivars have been obtained, with flower heads of very different shapes, sizes and colors.

Garden hardy varieties are defined by their ability to produce an abundance of small blooms with little if any mechanical assistance, such as staking, and withstanding wind and rain.

Exhibition varieties, though, require staking, overwintering in a relatively dry, cool environment, and sometimes the addition of night lights.

[13] The plant is eaten by various aphids, capsid bugs, earwigs, leaf miners, nematodes, spider mites, thrips, and whiteflies.

The plant can die from various diseases which include aster yellows, Botrytis, leaf spots, rust, powdery mildew, verticillium wilt, and rotting of stem and roots, and even viruses.

[3] Biotechnology of chrysanthemum encompasses advanced techniques such as micropropagation, mutation breeding, cryopreservation, and the application of nanoparticles.

[15] Mutation breeding, involving the use of chemicals or radiation to induce genetic variations, helps in developing new chrysanthemum cultivars with desirable traits such as improved flower color, size, and resistance to diseases.

[16] Cryopreservation offers a method to conserve chrysanthemum germplasm at ultra-low temperatures, enabling the long-term storage of genetic resources without losing viability.

[18] Together, these biotechnological approaches contribute significantly to the genetic improvement, conservation, and sustainable production of chrysanthemums.