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Family: Asteraceae (Composite)

Names: Pot Marigold, Summer's Bride, Husbandman's Dial, Holigold, Marybud, Marygold, Bride of the Sun, Spousa Solis, Golds, bull flower; butterwort, care, cowbloom, death-flower, drunkard, golden flower of Mary, gouls, goulans, kingcups, holygold, sun’s bride, water dragon, yolk of egg, poet’s marygold, publican and sinner, ruddles, Scotch marigold, shining herb, solsequia, Gold; Ringelblume, Studentenblume, Totenblume, Goldblume (German); souci (French); calendula (Italian); Nagietek lekarski (Polish); goedsbloem-wratten-kruid (Dutch); calendula gialla, fiorrancio, calenzola (Italian); calendula, flamenquilla, maravilla, flor de muerto (Spanish); maravilhas, marianas (Portuguese); ringblomma (Swedish); nogotki, lekarstvennye (Russian); chin-chan-hua (Chinese); janvah, azariyunah, azarboya (Arabic)

Description: Native to Asia and southern Europe and was brought to America by early settlers. Introduced to Britain by the Romans. Calendula is a flowering annual that grows to a height of twelve to eighteen inches. The stem is slightly fuzzy and the leaves are soft, long (growing to 6"), pale green. The root is a long spindly taproot. Flowers may be yellow or orange. The flowers are about one and one-half inches in diameter, consisting of concentric rows of ray florets surrounding the smaller ones making up the center disc.

Cultivation: Direct seed in the garden once the last chance of frost has past or plants can be put out before the last frost being careful not to injure the long taproot when transplanting. Germination is 7-10 days at a very high percentage if the seed is of good quality. The young seedlings are susceptible to damping off so take care to have good drainage and ventilation. Prefers a moderately healthy soil with average drainage and a pH of 5-8 but will grow in a wide range of soils. They prefer full sun or partial shade. A second planting can be made at the beginning of July to ensure a fall harvest. Thin plants to 12 inches apart. If you dehead the plant religiously in spring and summer it may produce more flowers as the weather turns cooler. Irrigation needs are on the high side so it’s recommended to water once or twice a week depending on the temperature, humidity and soil type. Cultivation should be done soon after transplanting and probably one more time before it becomes unnecessary due to the short life of the crop in the field. Pests include blister beetles, aphids and cucumber beetles. Best way to deal with pests is to pick the flowers often so there is little time for the pests to feed. Cucumber beetles are extremely difficult to deal with except with strong botanicals like rotenone.

Flower harvest can start as early as late May in warm areas. You can pick a particular planting three times a week until productivity goes way down, which is usually after 6-8 weeks. Harvests start to diminish in the late plantings after the first frost. The best time to pick is in the heat of the day when the resins are highest and the water content the lowest. Never let the flowers develop to the point where the seed is forming or you will greatly diminish your harvest totals.

The flowers should be dried as soon as possible as they tend to heat up and decompose if kept in the sun or in your harvest bucket. The petals dry quickly but the receptacle does not so you can expect a total drying time of 10 days or more at 90 degrees or so. Some growers advocate quick drying at high temperatures of 120 degrees which dries them in 5-7 days. They must also be sorted carefully as they reabsorb moisture readily. Dry flower yields of 400-600 pounds per acre can be expected. An acre would require a crew of 3-4 picking nearly every afternoon for 3-4 months.

History: The word calendula is derived from the Latin calens meaning the first day of each month because the Romans claimed they bloomed the first of each month. Christians called it "marygold" and "marybud" because it bloomed at all the festivals celebrating the Virgin Mary, also because people believed by constant association with the flowers they could ward off evil. It should not be confused with Tagetes also called "marigold". Known as the "herb of the sun" because the flowers open in the morning and close in the evening. Mentioned as such in Shakespeare's A Winter's Tale. The French name gauche-fer, meaning left-hand iron, was coined because the brilliant yellow marigold flower was thought to resemble the polished shield worn by warriors on the left arm. The culinary use of calendula dates back to ancient Rome. Common people couldn't afford to buy saffron and they discovered that powdered calendula petals were an excellent substitute which is why it has been called "poor man's saffron".

There are many stories about calendula. One is the story of the four wood nymphs who fell in love with Apollo, the sun god. The nymphs became so jealous of one another they began neglecting their duties to Apollo's sister, the goddess Diana. She turned them into four dull-white marigolds, which distressed Apollo, but his only recourse was to send down his most brilliant rays to color them gold.

In German folklore, rain was predicted if the flowers remained closed after 7 am. In India, Buddhists held pot marigold sacred to the goddess Mahadevi, who carried a trident emblem adorned with the flowers, while her followers crowned themselves with marigolds at her festival. Marigold was commonly used as an aphrodisiac, and thought to have great significance in love. Planting marigold in the footsteps of a loved one was supposed to tie him to his beloved. An old legend held that if a maiden touches a pot marigold with her bare foot she would be able to understand the language of birds. In the Middle Ages in Europe it was believed that those who wore marigolds would have a vision of anyone who had robbed them. Spanish sorcerers were said to wear it as a talisman. Traditionally it was picked when the Sun entered the sign of Virgo and the picker had to carry a wolf’s tooth wrapped in a bay leaf. In Mexico it is thought to be a flower of death and is believed to have spring from the blood of the Indians killed by the Spanish invaders.

Xochiquetzal, the Aztec love goddess, taught her people the message of the marigold, the petalled book of the cycles of life, of seed to leafy stem, of leafy stem to bud, of bud to flower open to the Sun, of flowers to drying petals that were the womb for the seed – to complete the cycle. Offerings of marigold petals were made to her.

In the early days of this country dried marigold petals were sold in country stores out of a wooden barrel just like other herbs. The practice of coloring butter made from autumn and winter milk--low in vitamin A and pale compared to spring butter--with skin-healing calendula was so common that butter became widely known as a burn ointment. The pigmentation of ornamental fish in captivity can be intensified by adding Calendula to regular fish food.