Photo: Forest and Kim Starr, CC BY 3.0 us (via Wikimedia Commons)
Huacatay (Wild Marigold)
Tagetes minuta
Also known as Wild Marigold, Stinking Roger, Khaki Weed, Mexican Marigold, Muster John Henry
Key benefits
✦Traditional uses
✦Long before it wandered the globe as a roadside weed, this pungent little marigold was a kitchen staple in the Andes, where cooks in Peru and Bolivia still call it huacatay and stir its sharp, minty-herbal leaves into the beloved sauce ocopa. Andean healers traditionally brewed the leaves into a warming tea for an unsettled stomach, and travelers carried crushed sprigs to keep biting insects at bay. As the plant spread through Africa, Europe, and Australia in the wake of trade and wool shipments, it picked up new names and new folk uses along the way, from a gardener's ally against soil pests to a humble home remedy for digestive discomfort.
How to grow & use it
✦The full apothecary for Huacatay (Wild Marigold)
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- ✦Remedies & preparations
- ✦ Growing guide
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- ✦Cilantro
- ✦Chile pepper
- ✦Chamomile
- ✦Cilantro (for culinary use)
- ✦French marigold, Tagetes patula (milder flavor)
“For a bold, herbal bite in the kitchen and a watchful ally out in the garden bed.”
Huacatay is the herb that gives ocopa, a classic Peruvian potato sauce, its distinctive deep green color and bold flavor, and the same plant's aromatic oil was once distilled and exported for use in the perfume trade under the name tagette oil.
The essential oil is potent and shouldn't be taken internally, and handling the fresh plant before sun exposure can cause skin sensitivity in some people. It's traditionally avoided in pregnancy, since the plant has a folk reputation as a uterine stimulant.