Two Plants, One Name, and the Flower of the Sun

The name marigold covers two unrelated flowers. The pot marigold (Calendula officinalis) is the Mediterranean plant of the old herbals, its golden flowers opening with the day; its genus name, from the Latin kalendae, reflects the belief that it bloomed on the first of every month. The African or Aztec marigold (Tagetes) is a New World plant of a different family. Both share the sun-bright colour that shaped their symbolism, and both turn their faces toward the light, the daily fact behind an ancient association with the sun.

Pot marigold's golden petals had a long practical life beyond the flower bed: dried and ground, they served as a cheap substitute for saffron, called poor man's saffron, used to colour and flavour broths, cheeses, butter and rice, a kitchen use recorded in English herbals from Gerard's Herball of 1597 onward. The plant is called pot marigold precisely because it was kept in the cooking pot as much as the border, a workaday history behind its later ornamental respectability. Modern herbal medicine confines itself to a genuine, modest finding, that calendula preparations have a mild antiseptic and skin-soothing action, the basis of the calendula creams sold today for minor cuts and grazes, a documented use quite distinct from any older magical claim.