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CAPE-MARIGOLD – Common name for Dimorphotheca, also called African Daisy. South Africa contributed this choice and colorful group of flowers to our gardens. They are herbaceous or sub-shrubby annuals and perennials bearing solitary terminal heads of ray and disk flowers in orange, yellow, purple, blue or white and ideally suited to low beds or borders or the rock garden as a source of color late in the season. Growing from 1 to 2 ft. tall in warm sunny locations, they do best when given a long season, flowering from early summer until frost. The plants, spreading in habit, are covered with an abundance of large daisy-like blossoms which generally expand in the sunlight but close toward evening.

In Calif. and other mild States they are splendid winter plants if seed is sown in late fall, but in the rest of the U. S. seed is generally sown indoors in early spring or outdoors in April or May. The perennial species are propagated by cuttings.

The more important species include:

Dimorphotheca annua, a rough, hairy annual plant, the rays being white or yellowish above and purplish on the under side. Var. ligulosa is double, with white rays which are yellow or violet on the under surface. Var. ringens has a deep-blue ring around the center.

aurantiaca, a perennial, often shrubby, which blossoms the first season. Rays orange-yellow. There are many hybrids in white, sulphur-yellow, golden-yellow, salmon, rose, apricot and ecru.

ecklonis, a perennial, to 2 ft. Upper side of rays white, under side steely lavender ; the disk is dark and ringed with blue.

calendulacea, a hairy annual with orange-yellow flowers.

cuneata, a small, branching, sticky shrub with yellow flowers.