The flowers are edible and the leaves aromatic. According to one account, the flowers often were placed in European cook pots and used as an inexpensive coloring alternative to saffron. Calendula also was used for healing and medicinal concoctions as it was the main ingredient in broths, salves, potions and even hair dye. The pot marigold term also may have been derived because calendula often was grown in pots. An herbaceous plant is one that has fleshy, above-ground stems rather than woody.
Herbaceous plants are apt to bend rather than snap like a woody plant.
They are often green and leafy with soft tissues. Each plant can produce several thousand seeds, all of which seem to germinate. The hellish weed can embed its pesky taproot in the tiniest cracks in concrete and hide in lawns until it matures and scatters more seeds about. Once it's established, you have a major problem. A thick layer of mulch can keep seeds from germinating.