Glebionis segetum Seeds | Corn Marigold
LATIN NAME: Glebionis segetum
COMMON NAME: Corn Marigold, Field Marigold
Plant Profile
Corn marigold is an upright annual of the daisy family, native to the eastern Mediterranean and western Asia and long established as a cornfield weed across Europe. It grows twenty to sixty centimetres tall with fleshy, deeply lobed, blue-green leaves and bright yellow daisy heads three to five centimetres across, borne through summer.
The flowers have a dark yellow centre and broad rays, and they are a strong, clear yellow that stands out in a meadow. It is an annual, so it depends on seed set each year to persist, and a single plant can produce several thousand seeds.
The seed heads nod as they ripen, and each one holds a row of heavy seeds.
Science & Biotechnology
The species is a textbook example of a weed that declined with modern agriculture. Its seed needs light and a period of cold to germinate, and it used to appear in huge numbers in spring-sown corn, where the soil was disturbed every year.
Herbicides and dense autumn sowing removed both the light and the bare ground it needs, and it is now largely confined to field margins and thin patches. Agri-environment schemes in Britain and Germany pay farmers to leave strips for it and other segetal plants, and seed is now sold for cornfield-meadow sowings.
Uses & Benefits
It is a good annual for a wildflower meadow or a cornfield-style planting, where the yellow flowers give a strong burst of colour in midsummer. It is also useful in a cutting garden, since the stems are long and the flowers last well in water.
The young leaves can be eaten in salads, and the plant is a nectar source for bees and butterflies. It is not a plant for a formal border, since it is short-lived and seeds itself freely, but it earns its place in a patch of annual meadow that is re-sown each spring.
The flowers are visited by hoverflies and small bees, which makes it useful in an open meadow.
Growing from Seed
Sow directly where it is to flower in spring, five millimetres deep, at 12-18C. It needs light to germinate, so do not bury the seed deeply. Thin the seedlings to twenty centimetres apart and keep the ground open; the plant fails in dense competition.
It flowers within twelve weeks of sowing and sets seed freely, so leave a few heads to ripen if you want it back next year. Full sun is essential, and the plant tolerates poor, stony soil better than rich ground, which produces leaves at the expense of flowers.
A second sowing in early summer will carry the display into autumn.
It will not grow in shade, and it disappears under a tall, dense sward.
Our Take
Corn marigold is a splash of colour for a wildflower strip or a cutting bed, and it costs almost nothing to raise. Leave a few heads to seed and it will come back.
Related Reading
Gardeners who grow Corn Marigold often pair it with these related subjects: