I ❤️ Calendula

Photos of Calendula officinalis

Calendula (Calendula officinalis), also known as Pot Marigold, is one of my favorite flowers. (My list of favorite flowers is very long, lol.) At the farm where I’m working this summer, Calendula is growing along the path in one section of the garden.

The Romans named this plant calendula, their word for “month,” because it can bloom all year—every month. So we could use the name, “Everymonth flower” if we wanted.

There’s quite a variety of flower shapes and colors.

Caledula is in the Sunflower Family, Asteraceae, and has “composite” flowers made up of a disc with petals. The family was formerly known as Compositae. The disc contains a multitude of flowers jammed together. In this photo, note the star shapes, which are the tips of the style, the female part of the flower, which takes in pollen and sends it to the ovary below, where the seed is formed.

Note the tiny hairs and glands on the sepals, which open to reveal the petals.

Someone laid eggs on the petal of this flower, below. Any entymologists out there known who?

Calendula are popular with bees.

Here you can see flowers past their prime, when they get “bed head.”

I reflexively “deadhead” Calendulas. This is when you pinch off the flowers that are going to seed to encourage new flowers, which definitely works. A plant that isn’t deadheaded will stop blooming or at least slow down. I was taught the word and the activity as a young child in my mother’s garden, probably with Coreopsis (which was one of my first words!) and was confused when I first heard the term used to describe Grateful Dead fans, lol.

Immature seeds, which are botanically called fruits.

Mature seeds, turned brown.

Calendula seeds are very unusual in shape. If you find some in an unlabeled envelope in your seed stash, they are unmistakable to identify.

Here is a flower harvest from a few weeks ago. Calendula is medicinal for a variety of ailments and symptoms. It’s popular to make a salve from them.

Dried flowers in a bowl, ready for tea or salve making.