# Marigold (Calendula officinalis)

**Calendula**

**Known today as.** *Calendula officinalis*, the pot marigold.

Kind: Plant

## What was it used for?

To comfort the heart, bring out the pox and measles, and heal wounds; the petals colored broths and cheese as a “poor man’s saffron.”

## What does modern science say?

Calendula ointments are widely used on minor wounds and skin; the evidence is modest. Calendula ointment is one of the few folk wound dressings with trial support: it reduced the skin reaction of radiotherapy in a French trial of 2004 better than the standard cream, and it speeds the closing of small wounds in animal work. Its petals are rich in lutein, and the flower is in the European monographs for minor skin inflammations.

## Pharmacognosy and toxicology

- **faradiol esters**: triterpene alcohols, the anti-inflammatory
- **calendulosides**: oleanolic acid saponins
- **lutein and zeaxanthin**: the colour
- **rutin and isoquercitrin**: 

**Mechanism.** The faradiol esters inhibit inflammation in the skin on a par with indomethacin in the mouse-ear test, and the extract speeds granulation and epithelial growth in wounds; a trial of calendula ointment in 254 women after breast radiotherapy found less dermatitis than with the standard cream (Pommier, 2004).

**Dose.** Very safe on the skin; Compositae allergy is rare with this one.

**Standing.** EMA monograph (2018) for minor skin inflammation and wounds; in the German tradition and the French pharmacopoeia.

## What lore surrounds it?

Named *calendula* because it was said to flower on the calends, the first of every month.

Surgeons of the American Civil War and the First World War dressed wounds with calendula when other antiseptics ran short, and Gertrude Jekyll sent marigolds to the field hospitals in France. Shakespeare’s marigold “goes to bed wi’ the sun, and with him rises weeping.” The marigold of the Mexican Day of the Dead, *cempasúchil*, is a *Tagetes*, not this flower.

## What did the older authorities say?

**Its names.** Marigold is “Mary’s gold,” the flower given to the Virgin in the Middle Ages; the Romans had it as *solsequium*, the follower of the sun, since the flower opens with the morning and shuts at evening.

**Gerard.** Says the flower, dried and kept, was so much used in broths in the Netherlands that no grocer there was without it by the barrel, and that it “comforteth the heart.”

## Sources

- Gerard, J. (1597). *The Herball*.
- Grieve, M. *A Modern Herbal*, “Marigold.” As published on botanical.com.
- Shakespeare, *The Winter’s Tale* IV.iv.
- Pommier, P., et al. (2004). “Phase III randomized trial of *Calendula officinalis* compared with trolamine for the prevention of acute dermatitis during irradiation for breast cancer.” *Journal of Clinical Oncology* 22.
- Pommier, P., et al. (2004). “Phase III randomized trial of *Calendula officinalis* compared with trolamine for the prevention of acute dermatitis during irradiation for breast cancer.” *Journal of Clinical Oncology* 22.
- EMA/HMPC (2018). *European Union herbal monograph on Calendula officinalis L., flos* (EMA/HMPC/437450/2017).

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*Marigold.* In *Materia Medica*, edited by B. C. P. Statema. Version 1, revised 2026-10-01. The Thinking Press. https://thethinkingpress.org/materia-medica/marigold

Historical description, not medical advice.