Calendula: medicinal plant par excellence

Calendula is the ultimate officinal plant. With its brilliant colors ranging from pale yellow to intense orange, it reveals itself as a plant with countless properties and a highly variable appearance, due to the presence of about 25 different species. We are most familiar with Calendula arvensis, the wild one, which appears small, and Calendula officinalis, with the larger head, corresponding to the cultivated one, both with the same properties applicable in phytotherapy.

Calendula officinalis is part of the extensive Asteraceae family, an annual or biennial herb, growing up to half a meter tall, with an erect posture. Its root is fibrous, 20-30 cm long and approximately 1-2 cm in diameter, ranging in color from whitish-yellow to light brown. Numerous secondary roots branch off from the main root, consisting of thin filaments. The stem is herbaceous but lignified at the base, with dense branches; the lower leaves are spatulate, the upper ones smaller, embracing the stem, with entire margins or small sharp teeth, all endowed with short hairs, denser at the edges.

The flower heads, constituting the inflorescence, have a diameter of 5-6 cm, although they can reach up to 8 cm; they are solitary, numerous, and located at the apex of the stem, with bracts inserted on the naked receptacle. The flowers are dimorphic, with tubular disc flowers and ligulate ray flowers, while the ovary is inferior.

Calendula is a robust and undemanding plant, preferring sunny, warm, humid locations and clayey soils, but it can also survive in poor soils and adverse climatic conditions. It can be found in plains and hills up to altitudes of 600 meters above sea level. Flowering occurs between June and December.

The drug of Calendula consists of the flower heads containing essential oil, triterpenic saponins, carotenoids (lutein) giving them their typical color, flavonoids, coumarins, phenols, tannins, sesquiterpenic lactones, sterols, nitrogenous compounds, and particularly allantoin, as well as paraffins and polysaccharides.

Calendula has a wide range of applications in the field of phytotherapy.

For internal use, it has hepatoprotective, hypolipidemic, anti-ulcer, and spasmolytic activity, helping to resolve gynecological problems (amenorrhea and dysmenorrhea).

For external use, it can resolve many skin problems, especially burns, frostbite, chilblains, boils, dry dermatoses, eczema, cracks, folliculitis, ulcerations, insect bites, hemorrhoids, varicose ulcers, and calluses; issues that are resolved with the use of an ointment.

Other pharmaceutical forms used can include herbal tea, mother tincture, and oleolite.

Ingredients for a Calendula cream:

– 30 grams Calendula oleolite

– 30 grams sunflower oil

– 20 grams water

– 3-4 grams beeswax.

Applications: moisturizing, soothing, and regenerating. It is used on reddened and chapped skin. In the case of chilblains, add 5 drops of lemon essential oil.

Calendula is also an edible plant (used in cooking) exploiting the whole plant: the whole boiled and pan-fried with butter or oil, garlic, and chili; the leaves, with cooking, lose their strong flavor and acquire a sweet taste. The still tender leaves with an intense flavor are used raw to flavor salads, vegetables, or meats. Leaves and flowers are used to prepare sauces and fillings. The flowers added to meat broth, in addition to color, add a pleasant flavor and aroma. The flower petals are added to salads or used to color risottos instead of saffron. The buds can be pickled or preserved in salt like capers.

Calendula is also the protagonist of many legends and folk tales: in Greek mythology, the flower was born from the tears of Aphrodite for her beloved Adonis, a Greek hero and young lover of the goddess, who died pierced by a boar sent by the jealous Ares, the goddess’s companion. Calendula represents the flower of pain and sorrow, also because being a flower that lowers its head at sunset, it symbolizes mourning and grief.

According to another English legend, it is a symbol of jealousy. They are depicted as spinsters never loved by anyone who, when they die, transform into this yellow flower out of anger.

The flower was used in the past by farmers as a “barometer”, because if the air is too humid, the flower heads do not open during the day; so, just observe them to know whether to expect a rainy day or not.

ANJA LATINI

Registered Herbalist at RNEP no. GLT0018S