Garden and Flowers

CORN MARIGOLD

Glebionis segetum or Chrysanthemum segetum is a species of the genus Glebionis, probably native only to the eastern Mediterranean region. Common names include Corn Marigold and Corn Daisy.

At one time, when the fieds turned golden, it was not only due to the golden-yellow ears of corn, but also to the large quantities of deep yellow corn marigolds growing between them. The species originally came from southern Europe and North Africa, but for centuries it has been an indigenous field plant in The Netherlands, where it grows in light, sandy soil with a lime deficiency but not excessively acid. It is possible that people brought the plant further north for use as a dye. Nowadays, its cultivated forms are particularly popular as easily grown garden plants. Corn marigolds grow about 20 in tall. Chrysanthemum segetum ‘Eastern Star’ bears pale yellow flowers with brown centers; Chrysanthemum segetum ‘Eldorado’ bears yellow flowers with rich-brown centers; Chrysanthemum segetum ‘German Flag’ bears red flowers with a broad yellow zone round the dark-brown centers.

It is a herbaceous perennial plant growing to 80 cm tall, with spirally arranged, deeply lobed leaves 5-20 cm long. The flowers are bright yellow, produced in capitulae (flowerheads) 3.5-5.5 cm diameter, with a ring of ray florets and a centre of disc florets.

It is widely naturalised outside of its native range, colonising western and central Europe with early human agriculture; it can be an invasive weed in some areas.

It was formerly treated in the genus Chrysanthemum, but under a recent decision of the International Code of Botanical Nomenclature, that genus has been redefined with a different circumscription to include the economically important florist’s chrysanthemum. The Corn Marigold must have been a serious weed during the 13th-century in Scotland as a law of Alexander II states that if a farmer allows so much as a single plant to produce seed in amongst his crops then he will be fined a sheep.