Marigold

Where it grows

Tagetes is native to Mexico and Central America, where it was sacred to the Aztecs as cempasuchil. Spanish colonists carried the seed to Europe, North Africa, and South Asia. Today India is the world’s largest commercial grower, both for cut flowers and for extracting lutein from the petals for poultry feed.

How to recognise it

African or Aztec marigolds (T. erecta) form bushy plants thirty to ninety centimetres tall with finely divided, strongly scented dark green foliage. The double composite flowers crowd the plant in pompon balls of overlapping ray florets. French marigolds (T. patula) are smaller and often bicoloured.

Garden & cultural uses

Roots of T. erecta release alpha-terthienyl into the soil, suppressing root-knot nematodes — the basis of their reputation as a vegetable garden companion plant. In India and Nepal, marigold strings drape doorways for Diwali and the autumn festival of Tihar.

In ritual

In Mexico, cempasuchil petals are scattered along the path home for the dead during Dia de los Muertos, the orange and the scent thought to guide souls back to their families.