Tagetes erecta.

a

PREVIOUS picture of a very humble marigold suggested homely thoughts, and the result was a merely gossiping paper; but the showy flower now before us demands learned treatise, and we must show that we are equal to the inspiriting theme. We shall therefore dive into the depths of our erudition, and thence rebound to the highest heights of philosophy, in the endeavour to display to the reader the immensity of our knowledge of marigolds.

A marigold may be regarded as a golden Mary, but the name has no necessary reference whatever to the Virgin Mary, or to any Mary; it is a corruption of the old Anglo-Saxon mersc-meargealla, the golden marsh flower (caltha), which is still called the "marsh marigold," although it is really a ranunculus. The marigold proper is a composite plant, and far removed from the ranunculus and all its cup

flowered relations. In the "Grete Herball" it is called

"Mary Gowles.” Dr. Prior, in his " Popular Names of British Plants," remarks that "it is often mentioned by the older poets under the name of gold simply." Notwithstanding all this, the marigold became the flower of the Virgin Mary, if it was not so originally. The name being once corrupted, the association with a personage followed, and in the latest days of history, say the seventeenth century, it became the symbol of Queen Mary. The celebrated Child's Bank, that was so long associated with old Temple Bar, had for its sign the marigold, and the motto AINSI MON ÂME, which necessarily applies to a sunflower. This appears to discomfort us; but no, the marigold is a sunflower, quite as much a sunflower as the gigantic American plant that is now known by the name. In the poem by George Wither, quoted at page 63, we read

that

"Every morning she displayes

Her open brest, when Titan spreads his rayes."

In Perdita's garland for men of middle age we find

"The marigold that goes to bed with the sun,

And with him rises weeping."

Winter's Tale, iv. 3.

In the fifty-fourth sonnet of Drummond we have—

"Absence hath robb'd thee of thy wealth and pleasure,
And I remain, like marigold of sun

Depriv'd, that dies by shadow of some mountain."

That the marigold was often regarded as especially emblematic of the Virgin Mary is certain. We see marigold windows in Lady chapels, and we may call them sunflowers if it suits us to do so, but the plant we now know as the sunflower was certainly unknown in Europe

previous to A.D. 1500. The dedication of the flower to Queen Mary would naturally occur to the adherents of her cause, and hence it is not surprising to find in a ballad of her time, as quoted in "Notes and Queries" (S. 5, xii. 418), such lines as the following:

"To Mary our queen, that flower so sweet,

This marigold I do apply;

For that name doth seme so meet

And property in each party.

For her enduring patiently

The storms of such as list to scold

At her doings, without cause why,

Loath to see spring this marigold."

The flowers known as marigolds represent two distinct genera of composites. The common weedy marigold figured at page 61 is Calendula officinalis; the generic name implying that it keeps pace with the calendar-that is to say, it flowers every day throughout the year, which is very nearly true. The great African marigold is Tagetes erecta; it is not African, but Mexican, as are also the more refined French marigold, Tagetes patula, and the fine-leaved and the shining-leaved kinds, T. tenuifolia and T. lucida. The genus Tagetes is named in honour of an obscure Etruscan hero of doubtful pedigree. It seems that Jupiter had a son named Genius, and this Genius had a son named Tages, who taught the Etruscans the art of divination. In the fifteenth book of Ovid's "Metamorphoses " he is thus referred to in connection with the transformation of Egeria :

"The nymphs and Virbius like amazement fill'd,
As seized the swains who Tyrrhene furrows till'd,
When heaving up, a clod was seen to roll,
Untouch'd, self-mov'd, and big with human soul.

The spreading mass, in former shape deposed,
Began to shoot, and arms and legs disclosed,
Till, form'd a perfect man, the living mould
Oped its new mouth, and future truths foretold;
And, Tages named by natives of the place,

Taught arts prophetic to the Tuscan race."

It is a grave defect of the Mexican marigolds that they emit an unpleasant odour, and therefore are scarcely fit for bouquets. The pretty little T. tenuifolia (also known as signata) is less objectionable than the others in this respect, and, generally speaking, is the most useful of all, because of its suitability for bedding, to take the place in dry soils of that capricious flower the yellow calceolaria. All these Mexican marigolds are half hardy, and therefore the seed should be sown in a frame or greenhouse in March and April, and the plants carefully nursed until strong enough to take their place for flowering in the beds and borders.