"There is no difference between this and the single Marigold but that the flowers are single, consisting of one row of leaves of the same color; either paler or deeper yellow, standing about a great brown thrum in the middle. Our gardens are the chief places for the double flowers to grow in."
Another description is contained in the famous "Gardener's Labyrinth" by Didymus Mountain (Thomas Hill):[66]
"The Marigold, named of the herbarians Calendula, is so properly termed for that in every Calend and in each month this reneweth of the own accord and is found to bear flowers as well in Winter as Summer, for which cause the Italians name the same the flower of every month. But some term it the Sun's Spowse, or the follower of the Sun; and is of some named the Husbandman's Dial, in that the same showeth to them both the morning and evening tide. Others name it the Sun's Bride and Sun's Herb, in that the flowers of the same follow the Sun as from the rising by the South into the West; and by a notable turning obeying to the Sun, in such manner that what part of Heaven he possesseth they unto the same turned behold, and that in a cloudy and thick air like directed, as if they should be revived, quickened and moved with the spirit of him. Such is the love of it knowen to be toward that royal Star, being in the night time for desire of him as pensive and sad, they be shut or closed together; but at the noontime of the day fully spread abroad as if they with spread arms longed, or diligently attended, to embrace their Bridegroom. This Marigold is a singular kind of herb, sown in gardens as well for the pot as for the decking of garlands, beautifying of Nosegays and to be worn in the bosom."
The Marigold is supposed to be the Chrysanthemum or gold-flower of the Greeks, the Heliotrope-solsequium; and the story goes that the flower was originally the nymph Clytie, who gazed all day upon the Sun with whom she had fallen in love. At length she was turned into the flower. "All yellow flowers," said St. Francis de Sales, "and above all those that the Greeks call Heliotrope and we call Sunflower, not only rejoice at the sight of the sun, but follow with loving fidelity the attraction of its rays, gazing at the Sun and turning towards it from its rising to its setting."
Very charmingly does George Wither, a contemporary of Shakespeare, refer to this:
When with a serious musing I behold
The grateful and obsequious Marigold,
How duly every morning she displays
Her open breast when Phœbus spreads his rays;
How she observes him in his daily walk,
Still bending towards him her small slender stalk;
How when he down declines she droops and mourns,
Bedewed, as 'twere, with tears till he returns;
And how she veils her flowers when he is gone.
When this I meditate methinks the flowers
Have spirits far more generous than ours.
Margaret of Orleans, grandmother of Henri IV, knowing well the legend of the flower, chose for her device a marigold with the motto, je ne veux suivre que lui seul.
In the reign of Henry VIII the marigold was often called "Souvenir" and sentimental ladies wore wreaths of marigolds mixed with the heartsease. To dream of marigolds denoted prosperity, riches, success, and a happy and a wealthy marriage. As the marigold was a solar flower, the astrologers placed it under the sign and care of Leo.
In a wholly Elizabethan spirit Keats sang: