Marigold

“ The Marigold is the conventional emblem of distress of mind. It is distinguished by many singular properties. It blossoms the whole year, and on that account, the Romans termed it the flower of the calends, or of all the months. Its flowers are open only from nine in the morning till three in the afternoon. They always follow the course of the sun, by turning from east to west as he proceeds upon his daily journey. In July and August these flowers emit, during the night, small luminous sparks. Alone, the Marigold expresses grief; interwoven with other flowers, the varied events of life ”

“ A foxglove lifts her bells and bells silent above the singing grass,
Still the old marigold her light sprinkles like riches to the poor.
Snapdragon still his changeling blossom shakes with the burden of the bees,
And the strong bindweed creeps and winds and springs on high a conqueror.
Would now her eyes grieve to behold snapdragon, foxglove, marigold
Daily diminish in their sweet and bindweed wreathing over all—
Weed and grass and weed and grass, friendless, melancholy, cold,
Wreathing the earth like wreathing snow from bare wall to low greening wall? ”

“ The Marigold the leaves abroad doth spread, Because the sun's and her power is the same. The Violet of purple color came, Dyed in the blood she made my heart to shed. In brief, all flowers from her their virtue take; From her sweet breath, their sweet smells do proceed; The living heat which her eyebeams doth make Warmeth the ground, and quickeneth the seed. The rain, wherewith she watereth the flowers, Falls from mine eyes, which she dissolves in showers. LXII To live in hell, and heaven to behold; To welcome life, and die a living death; To sweat with heat, and yet be freezing cold ”

“ He marks the fealty of the marigold to its god the sun, and even touches the freaks of fashion, condemning in some woman of his time an usage, long obsolete, in accordance with which she adorned her head with "the golden tresses of the dead." But it was as an observer and a delineator of man in all his moods that he was the bright, consummate flower of humanity. ”

“ And when last night’s cuttings have faded, I shall be very glad of a glowing mass of marigold beside my fireplace, and of the yellow stars of calendula, like embodied sunshine, on my dining-table.
Well, then, the frost has come! And after the first pang of realization, I find that, curiously enough, the worst is over. Since it has come, let it come! ”

“ The ordinary reader understands Marigold to refer to the French, African and Pot Marigolds. The botanical name Calendula is said to imply that the plant keeps pace with the calendar. In other words that it is nearly always in bloom. And really this is not very far from the truth. Once introduce the Pot Marigold into your garden and you will rarely be without flowers. It is hardy and seeds itself very [Pg 316] freely. Seed may be sown out of doors where the plants are to bloom, choosing for preference poor ground, otherwise the plants will grow freely enough, but blooms will be scarce. ”

“ The smaller, and the three-toothed marigold occur from time to time, provided with ray florets, showing a positive variation. And the white marigold has produced in our gardens a variety without rays. Such varieties are quite constant, never returning to the old species. ”

“ She watched her dog darting among the stubble at the edge of the field, and as she idly viewed his gambols her eyes caught sight of a yellow flower growing near the hedge. She lifted her little head with its toss of brown hair, then drew her slender, [12] lithe body from its covert to stand erect and to walk slowly across the open space to gather the wild marigold, at which she gazed thoughtfully, standing so still that her shadow scarcely wavered. ”

“ For some curious early English notices of the Mandrake, see "Promptorium Parvulorum," p. 324, note. See also Brown's "Vulgar Errors," book ii. c. 6, and Dr. M. C. Cooke's "Freaks of Plant Life."
MARIGOLD.
There are at least three plants which claim to be the old Marigold. 1. The Marsh Marigold (Caltha palustris) . This is a well-known golden flower—
"The wild Marsh Marigold shines like fire in swamps and hollows gray." ”

“ The poem begins with a description of betony, powerful against “wykked sperytis,” and then treats, amongst other herbs, of the virtues of centaury, marigold, celandine, pimpernel, motherwort, vervain, periwinkle, rose, lily, henbane, agrimony, sage, rue, fennel and violet. It is pleasant to find the belief that only to look on marigolds will draw evil humours out of the head and strengthen the eyesight. ”

“ Little girls with white veils and old maids in violet ribbons, school-girls home for the holidays, first-communicants, pale nuns, dishevelled romps, gossips and prudes. Here is the Marigold, who breaks up with her brightness the green of the borders. Here is the Camomile, like a nosegay of snow, beside her unwearying brothers, the Garden Chrysanthemums, whom we must not confuse with the Japanese Chrysanthemums of autumn. The Annual{18} Helianthus, or Sunflower, towers like a priest raising the monstrance over the lesser folk in prayer and strives to resemble the luminary which he adores. ”

“ Among the South Slavs a girl will dig up the earth from the footprints of the man she loves and put it in a flower-pot. Then she plants in the pot a marigold, a flower that is thought to be fadeless. And as its golden blossom grows and blooms and never fades, so shall her sweetheart’s love grow and bloom, and never, never fade. Thus the love-spell acts on the man through the earth he trod on. ”

“ Margery could almost smell the posies, she was so excited. Only, she had seen so little of flowers that she did not know what all the names meant. She did not know that a helianthus was a sunflower until her mother told her so, and she had never seen the dear, blue, bell-shaped flowers that always grow in old-fashioned gardens, and are called Canterbury bells. She thought the calendula must be a strange, grand flower, by its name; but her mother told her it was the gay, sturdy, everydayish little flower called a marigold. ”

“ Tagetes patula, and T. erecta, the French and African marigolds, are natives of Mexico, and are equally familiar garden plants, having been long in cultivation. Gerard figures five varieties of Flos africanus, of the single and double kind (loc. cit., p. 609) . Besides the above species the following have been introduced later, T. lucida, T. signata, also from Mexico, and T. tenuifolia from Peru.
Chrysanthemum segetum, the yellow corn marigold, is indigenous to Great Britain, and is frequent in corn-fields in most parts of England. When dried it has been employed as hay. ”

“ One only hopes this abundant autumnal bloom may not interfere with their blossoming in the spring; it is certainly finer than I ever remember in former seasons. A rockwork of big flints was quite gay with Virginian Stock and Primroses. To-day the frost is most severe. The Marigolds look unlike themselves, with a white cap border of frost, quilled round their orange faces; the half-opened buds in a Tea Rose bed are like fancy Moss Roses; only the moss is white, and every leaf is fringed with little sharp-pointed crystals. ”

“ A Marigold called Calendula Pluvialis even contracts its corolla every time the sun is veiled by a passing cloud. These sleep movements all have a scientific purpose. Their main object, just as in animals, is to reduce bodily activities to a low ebb and so to give the plant a chance to recuperate for another day’s efforts. ”

“ Fennel-flower, which belongs to the natural order Ranunculaceæ, or crowfoot family, is a candidate for admission to the seed sodality; costmary and southernwood of the Compositæ seek membership with the leaf faction; rue of the Rutaceæ and tansy of the Compositæ, in spite of suspension for their boldness and ill-breeding, occasionally force their way back into the domain of the leaf herbs. Marigold, a composite, forms a clique by itself, the most exclusive club of all. ”

“ In the double field-marigold we have the very first generation of a variety of pure and not hybrid origin. It shows the new attribute in its full development. It has flower-heads nearly as completely filled as the best double varieties of allied cultivated composites. In the second generation it reached heads with 200 rays each, and much larger numbers will seldom be seen in older species on heads of equal size. ”

“ No; because a flower is already common in England is no necessary reason why it should be taboo in any Alpine field we may create in England. Indeed, such common things as the Marsh Marigold (Caltha palustris) , the two Buttercups (Ranunculus acris and R. bulbosus) and the [Pg 167] Bladder Campion (Silene Cucubalus) are most precious. Who that has seen the Marsh Marigold pencilling with golden lines the course of some mountain rivulet through the spring fields, and lying, with Primula farinosa, a brilliant mass, in some juicy hollow ”

“ LONG PURPLES. This Arum, being a plant of the woods, does well in the rock-garden. The best plan is to remove a Jack-in-the-Pulpit from the woods with some of its native soil and transplant it in the garden. It grows in shade and sun alike.
MARIGOLD. For marigolds choose a light, dry, poor soil and a sunny spot. Sow seed any time from February to June. Seeds sown in the spring will produce flowers in June. Sow in drills ten inches apart and water moderately. Thin the seedlings and remove into rows ten inches apart. In rich soil the plant grows too large and fails to blossom well. ”

“ Now, giving a pleasant rest and refreshment to the eye after the blues and greys, is a well-shaped drift of the pale sulphur African Marigold. It was meant to be the dwarf variety, but, as it grows two and a half feet high, it has been pulled down as it grew. Some of it has been brought down some way over the edge69 of the path, where it breaks the general front line pleasantly and shows off its good soft colouring. We grow only this pale colour and a good form of the splendid orange. ”

“ The surface of a marigold acts differently; all the blue is absorbed, as in the case of the poppy, and a good deal of the red with it, leaving just a little to brighten up the yellow which is reflected with it. Some substances, white marble for instance, have no power of splitting the light into colours, absorbing some and reflecting others, but reflect the whole of it in its integrity. Others again, like black velvet, absorb nearly the whole, just reflecting sufficient to enable us to see its surface. ”

“ If Sprengel and Salmasius are right in their conjectures that the Caltha of Pliny and Virgil is the marigold, our Calendula officinalis, the passage cannot mean that the flower of it is of the same size and colour with any variety of the violet mentioned in the preceding Chapter. From the description given of it by Dioscorides, it is more than probable that the Caltha of the ancients is not the marigold, and Hardouin is probably right in his conjecture that Pliny intends to describe a variety of the violet under the name. Fée is at a loss as to its identification. ”

“ The Musk Mallow (Malva moschata) is another common variety of this plant, which emits from its leaves a faint musky odour, especially in warm weather, or when they are drawn lightly through the hand. Its virtues are similar in kind, but less powerful in degree, to those of the Marsh Mallow.
[326] MARIGOLD. In the Grete Herball this plant was called Mary Gowles. Three varieties of the Marigold exercise medicinal virtues which constitute them Herbal Simples of a useful nature—the Corn Marigold (Chrysanthemum segetum) , found in our cornfields ”

“ Below, in the garden, were golden splotches of colour—beds of great African marigolds, a vivid contrast to the cool green of the close-dipped grass. Through the silence came the musical dripping of a fountain.
Overhead a door opened. She heard a child’s voice, and then a little burst of laughter. Again there was silence. And slowly the rose-colour faded in the sky, till only a pale lavender-grey haze covered land and water.
The gold of the marigolds became softly blurred; the green of the grass lost its colour. ”

“ There Nature beat Art decidedly.
What a world it was! Literally swimming in sunshine, from the sparkling sea in the distance, to the beds of marigolds close by—huge marigolds, double and single, mingled with carnations that filled the air with rich autumnal scent, all the more delicious because we feel it is autumnal, and therefore cannot last. It was a very simple garden, merely a square grass-plot with a walk and a border round it, and its only flowers were these marigolds, carnations, with quantities of mignonette, and bounded all round with a hedge of tamarisk ”

“ Mary Ann was silent. Once she started a little as Nathan's clumsy fin- gers touched the largest marigold. She knew that by parting the feathery leaves ever so little he might discover a bud concealed there.
"They don't look Like vegetables to me," he continued. "They ain't squat enough, unless they're some new kind of asparagras, and that *d be a luxury. The guve'ment wouldn't do that." ”

“ Some species, however, like the bur-marigolds, have fallen into the parasitic mode of dispersal, and these are mostly plants of the low, tangled thickets along streams and in swampy places. The many-flowered heads of the bur-marigold ripen in the fall into numerous flattened seedlike bodies, or achenia, each one of which is crowned with two or more stiff, needlelike, and barbed awns. Few "stickers" are more annoying than these "beggar's-ticks" of the bur-marigold. ”

“ Such simple loveliness is out of fashion, it seems! Torch plants (Tritoma) [Pg 202] are alight in all the edges of distant shrubberies. There are Japan Anemones and Œnothera everywhere. The Sweet Pea hedge by the tennis-court is out again in bloom. Marigolds take care of themselves. They keep going off and coming on again, shining out in the dark where least expected. Our Marigolds are of the deepest orange-gold. The seed was brought from Cannes, where their colour is always fine. ”