REMARKS ON THE TAGETES TENUIFOLTA. 
49 
TAGETES TENUIFOLIA. 
WITH AN ENGRAVING. 
Every one knows the common marigolds, distinguished by the 
appellatives of French and African : the former, Tagetes patula 
of botanists, is a dwarf, compact-growing annual, and the double 
kinds, which exist in some variety of colour, are really hand¬ 
some flowers ; the latter is called Tagetes erecta, and is also an 
annual plant, but of much more rigid habit, bearing flowers twice 
as large as the FYench marigold, and some of a delicate primrose 
colour, others of a deep orange tint. Both these are beautiful 
objects to look at , but they must not be touched, for the odour 
they give out or impart to the fingers is anything but agreeable 
to most persons. 
The Tagetes tenuifolia, represented in our plate, does not pos¬ 
sess this latter disqualification to being a general favorite; for, 
though it does give out an odour, yet this odour is an agreeable 
one, partaking somewhat, no doubt, of the same characteristics 
as the common kinds, but altogether more refined and balsamic, 
and when not taken in too close and powerful an indraught, it 
is, to our sense at least, a very agreeable scent. 
It is an annual plant, and forms a dense compact mass, of 
small growth, and very much branching in its habit. The leaves 
are slender and pinnatified, the divisions being curiously marked 
♦ with a row of minute glands, which appear to be (as indeed they 
are) small orange-coloured dots: these glands secrete the agree¬ 
able fragrance just now referred to. The flowers, as will be per¬ 
ceived from our representation, are but of moderate size, though 
some little allowance must be made, as our specimen was pro¬ 
cured quite late in the flowering season, and indeed after the 
plants had been injured by frost. The flowers are composed of five 
roundish florets, with a deep notch at the end, and of an orange- 
yellow colour. Our specimen was obtained from a plant grown 
in the garden of the Royal Botanic Society of London, in the 
Regent’s Park, and we were informed that the seeds had been 
procured in a London seed-shop during the last spring, under 
