page_title: Tagetes erecta
section_title: History
hierarchical_section_title: Tagetes erecta / History
caption_attribution_description: Tagetes erecta and Tagetes patula, gouache on vellum, in: Gottorfer Codex
context_page_description: Tagetes erecta, the Mexican marigold or Aztec marigold, is a species of the genus Tagetes native to Mexico. Despite its being native to the Americas, it is often called African marigold. In Mexico, this plant is found in the wild in the states of México, Puebla, and Veracruz.
  This plant reaches heights of between 20 and 90 cm. The Aztecs gathered the wild plant as well as cultivating it for medicinal, ceremonial and decorative purposes. It is widely cultivated commercially with many cultivars in use as ornamental plants, and for the cut-flower trade.
  Some authorities regard Tagetes patula as a synonym of Tagetes erecta.
context_section_description: The archaeological record of the use of Tagetes erecta among pre-Hispanic civilizations is not as abundant as in the case of other species of the same family. It has been proposed the identification of Tagetes erecta of some flowers represented in Aztec art, such as those seen in the monolith of Coyolxauhqui, as part of the headdress of the goddess, proposed as a symbol of their sovereignty or death; also form part of the collar wears a god plant in a vase found in the Templo but also could be Tagetes patula. With the arrival of the Spaniards in Mexico, the documentary record of the ceremonial and medicinal use of the Tagetes erecta increased in which the flower is described by Bernardino de Sahagún as:
  These flowers are called Cempoalxóchitl; they are yellow and of good smell, and wide and beautiful, that they are born, and others that sow them in the orchards; They are in two ways, some they call females Cempoalxóchitl and they are big and beautiful, and others that are called Cempoalxóchitl males are not so beautiful or so big. 
  Sahagún also describes, in the same work, that the plant had a role in the rituals of the religious festival Mexica of the month Teculhuitontli, where the goddess of salt Huixtocíhuatl, whose color was yellow, was celebrated and who offered herself as sacrifice a woman. In the work of the physician Francisco Hernández, it is described that the name cempoalxóchitl received at least seven types of flowers, noting that the term properly described the largest of them and that the Spaniards called it carnation of Indian, also lists its medical properties.
caption: Botanical illustration.
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