186 
THE LADIES’ FLOWER-GARDEN 
which are remarkable for their bright orange ray, and rich dark purple disk. It is quite hardy, and if the seeds 
are sown in February, March, or April, it will require no other care ; as from its low and neat habit of growth 
it will not need either training; or thinning. 
O O 
GENUS X. 
TAGETES, Town. THE FRENCH AND AFRICAN MARIGOLDS. 
Lin. Sysi. SYNGENESIA SUPERFLUA. 
Generic Character. —Head radiate, somewhat discoid. Involucral 
scales in one series, combined into a campanulate, or cylindrical cup, 
which is toothed at the apex. Receptacle somewhat honey-combed. 
Fruit elongated, attenuated at the base ; compressed, tetragonal. 
Pappus simple with unequal paleae ; some obtuse and combined at the 
base, others awned, elongated, and free. 
1.—TAGETES PATULA, Lin. THE SPREADING TAGETES, OR FRENCH MARIGOLD. 
Engravings. —Bot. Mag. t. 150 ; and our fig. 8, in Plate 32. | pinnate, with linear-lanceolate serrated segments ; the upper serratures 
Specific Character —Stem erect. Branches spreading. Leaves | sometimes awned. Peduncles cylindrical, involucrum smooth. 
Description, &c. —The commonness of this flower prevents its exciting the admiration that its brilliant 
colours could not fail to obtain, if the plant they belong to were either new or rare. There are numerous 
varieties of it both single and double; and these display great variety in the stripes, and in the proportion of dark 
red in each flower. Curtis, in the fifth volume of the Botanical Magazine, mentions that two principal varieties 
were then kept in gardens ; the common dwarf sort, with a very strong disagreeable smell, and a larger kind, 
usually called the sweet-scented, but which possessed no other claims to that title than being rather less disagree¬ 
able than the other. The history of this plant is involved in some obscurity; as the early writers on plants 
appear to have confounded it with the upright or African Marigold. The striped Marigold is mentioned by 
Hernandez as being a native of Mexico; and Gerard, who gives a good figure of it under the name of the French 
Marigold, says that it was also called the carnation or Gilliflower of Peru. At any rate it appears to have been 
very early in cultivation as a garden flower, as Gerard speaks of it as being well known at the time at which he 
wrote, viz. 1596. It is still a favourite in many gardens, and is frequently raised on a hotbed, and planted out 
in May. 
2.—TAGETES ERECTA, Lin. THE ERECT TAGETES, OR AFRICAN MARIGOLD. 
Specific Character. —Stem and branches erect. Leaves pinnate, with lanceolate, serrulated segments ; the upper serratures sometimes 
awned. Peduncles ventricose at the apex. Involucrum rather angular. 
Description, &c. —This well-known plant differs principally from the French Marigold in its colour, which 
is of a deep orange not striped with brownish-red. It is said to he a native of Africa, and to have been intro¬ 
duced into Europe by the Emperor Charles Y. on his return from his expedition to Tunis in 1535. Fuchsius, in 
his History of Plants, the first edition of which was published in 1542, gives a very good figure of this Tagetes, 
under its old French name of Gyroflee-d’Inde ; and describes it as a kind of Indian wormwood. He adds that 
“ the flowers are at the extremity of the shoots, as yellow as saffron, and for beauty inferior to none.” He also 
mentions its having been brought to France from Germany. It appears to have been introduced into England 
with the striped Marigold, as both are figured and described together in the old books on plants. The culture 
is the same for both. 
