Cempasúchil (Mexican marigold)
The orange marigold of Día de Muertos (Tagetes erecta). Its petals are laid in paths to the altar, and its colour and scent are believed to guide the souls of the dead.
Meaning
Cempasúchil comes from the Nahuatl cempohualxochitl, “twenty flowers” or “many flowers”. Mexico’s Ministry of Agriculture also records the names flor de muerto, flor de difunto, flor de niño and veinte flores. The flower on the altars is Tagetes erecta, one of only two Tagetes species domesticated in Mesoamerica, according to Leonardo Beltrán Rodríguez of the UNAM Botanical Garden. Families lay its petals in thick paths from the street to the Ofrenda (altar) of the house. María del Carmen López Ramírez, a researcher in biology at the Autonomous University of the State of Hidalgo, gives the belief behind it: the colour of the flower lights the way, and its scent guides the souls of the dead to the altar their families have set up. It blooms after the rains, from July to November; in Hidalgo it is sown in June and July so that the harvest is ready at the end of October. It is grown in 14 Mexican states, chiefly Guanajuato, Hidalgo, Michoacán and the State of Mexico. In Hidalgo, López Ramírez says, it is central to Día de Muertos, or Xantolo, above all where Indigenous communities live: the Huasteca, the Sierra Otomí-Tepehua and the Valle del Mezquital.
Origin and history
The first written records of the flower are sixteenth-century, from texts made after the Spanish arrived. Beltrán Rodríguez names three: the Florentine Codex, the Codex Cruz-Badiano and Francisco Hernández’s natural history of New Spain. He suggests the name “twenty flowers” may refer to a wild cempasúchil that had twenty ray florets; each “petal” of the flower head is a small flower of its own.
According to the Ministry of Agriculture, the Mexica used it to decorate altars, offerings and burials for their dead, because they held it to be a symbol of life and death. López Ramírez adds that the codices record Nahua ceremonies in which a group smelled the flower as a way of communicating with their gods, and that “we still say” its scent and colour are a way of communicating with the dead.
Use on the altars has shaped the plant itself. Beltrán Rodríguez says one aim of domesticating cempasúchil was to strengthen its colour and scent, “so that there would be paths of a more intense colour and with an aroma” that the dead could see and follow.
The “African” marigold is Mexican
After they reached the Americas, Europeans collected Tagetes erecta and spread it so widely that it came to be thought African, Beltrán Rodríguez explains, which is why it is often called the African marigold. NC State Extension lists it also as the Aztec and the Mexican marigold, and notes that despite its common name it is native to Mexico and Guatemala. It is a different plant from the pot marigold, Calendula, the marigold of the European flower dictionaries; the October birth flowers page follows that one.
Read next
- Next in Day of the Dead symbolsPan de muertoThe sweet bread of Día de Muertos, set on the ofrenda for the dead. The classic loaf is round, with strips of dough on top like bones and a small ball in the centre.
- The same shape in Adinkra symbolsBese SakaBese Saka, a bunch of kola nuts, is the adinkra symbol of affluence, abundance and unity.
See also
Ofrenda (altar), Monarch butterfly, October birth flowers: marigold and cosmos, Papel picado, Copal, Sugar skull (calavera de azúcar).
Sources
- Flor de cempasúchil: símbolo de tradiciones y conocimiento ancestral (Gaceta UAEH), Gaceta de la Universidad Autónoma del Estado de Hidalgo, no. 33, November; interview with María del Carmen López Ramírez, ICBI, Universidad Autónoma del Estado de Hidalgo, interview text
- Cempasúchil, la flor de muertos que embellece México (Agricultura), Secretaría de Agricultura y Desarrollo Rural, Representación Zacatecas, article, Secretaría de Agricultura y Desarrollo Rural (Gobierno de México), article text
- Cempasúchitl, la olorosa y colorida flor que México heredó al mundo (Ciencia UNAM), Ciencia UNAM, Dirección General de Divulgación de la Ciencia, UNAM; interview with Leonardo Beltrán Rodríguez, Jardín Botánico, Instituto de Biología, Universidad Nacional Autónoma de México, article text
- Tagetes erecta (Extension Gardener Plant Toolbox), NC State Extension, common names; description
- Calendula officinalis (Extension Gardener Plant Toolbox), NC State Extension
The same shape elsewhere
Browse symbols formed from circles or curves and waves.
Researched, edited and approved by Rory Hansen before publishing. Last reviewed October 9, 2026. How we research
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