Species
+

Tagetes lunulata Ortega

Red-crescent marigold, Himalayan marigold

Climate known 48 photographs
Add one to my plants Sow seed

Every figure on this page is derived from public data by a stated rule and says its source; nothing here is written by a person or a model, except the Wikipedia passage, which is quoted and marked as such. How it is made.

Summary

Tagetes is a genus of 50 species of annual or perennial, mostly herbaceous plants in the family Asteraceae. They are among several groups of plants known in English as marigolds. The genus Tagetes was formally named by Carl Linnaeus in 1753. Linnaeus cited Joseph Pitton de Tournefort (1700), Johann Jacob Dillenius (1732), Gaspard Bauhin (1623) and Fabio Colonna (1606) as authors who used the name 'Tagetes' before. More on Wikipedia ›

The opening of Wikipedia, “Tagetes”, CC BY-SA 4.0, quoted as written. Kept separate from everything derived here.

About the genus · Tagetes

Tagetes is a genus of 50 species of annual or perennial, mostly herbaceous plants in the family Asteraceae. They are among several groups of plants known in English as marigolds. The genus Tagetes was formally named by Carl Linnaeus in 1753. More on Wikipedia ›

The opening of Wikipedia, “Tagetes”, CC BY-SA 4.0, quoted as written.

Family
Asteraceae
Described by
Ortega
Native to
Mexico Central, Mexico Northeast, Mexico Gulf +2
Wild records
1710 in range· 623 open

At a glance

Warmest month
27°C
May, mean day; nights 12 °C (CHELSA)
Rain
707mm/yr
6 wet months · peak Jul 159 mm (CHELSA)
Light
30–47DLI
mol/m²/day, winter to summer, open sky (CHELSA shortwave)
In short condensed by rule from the cultivation cards · not written by a person
Rain rule: a summer growing season, June to September in the northern hemisphere (June to September at the habitat, northern). Habitat rain 707 mm a year, wettest July at 159 mm, driest March at 8 mm (habitat calendar, northern hemisphere). Open sky over the habitat: 30 to 47 mol/m²/day. Cold floor -1.2 °C (1st-percentile habitat night, NASA POWER).
Each sentence is one card's own one-line form, written by the same rule as the card (Its year, Rain, Light, Temperature); the note cannot say what a card does not. Months are given for the northern hemisphere (set your site in Settings to change this), and the habitat's own alongside. The cards · the figures.

Cultivation

Its year Rain rule: a summer growing season, June to September in the northern hemisphere (June to September at the habitat, northern).

This species’ habitat figures, and what two fixed rules read from them.

The rain rule reads a summer growing season: 70% of the year's rain (539 mm of 707 mm) falls in June to September, warmer than the year (wet-season mean 18.2 °C against a yearly mean of 16.6 °C). Months are the habitat's, northern hemisphere; shifted six months for a southern-hemisphere collection: December to March.

Read from the median year of CHELSA monthly rainfall and mean temperature across the envelope cells: the rain rule takes the smallest set of months carrying 70% of the rain and calls it winter when its mean is more than half a degree below the year's, summer when more than that above, and neither in between; the temperature rule, used only under 120 mm, names the cooler six months when they are at least a degree cooler than the other six. Months are shifted for the other hemisphere only where the temperature curve gives a season to reverse. A reading of the curves, not an observation of the plant.

Rain Habitat rain 707 mm a year, wettest July at 159 mm, driest March at 8 mm (habitat calendar, northern hemisphere).

This species’ habitat figures, with their source.

707 mm a year at the habitat, 539 mm of it June to September. Wettest month July at 159 mm, driest March at 8 mm. Across the envelope cells the year's total runs 478 mm to 1183 mm (10th to 90th percentile of each cell's own year) (median year across the envelope cells, CHELSA; habitat calendar, northern hemisphere).

CHELSA monthly precipitation, median year across the envelope cells. The rain that falls where the species is recorded; nothing about how the plant takes water.

Light Open sky over the habitat: 30 to 47 mol/m²/day.

This species’ habitat figures, with their source.

Open sky over the habitat: 30 to 47 mol/m²/day across the year (daily light integral, median year across the envelope cells, CHELSA; the lowest 10th-percentile month across the cells is 28, the highest 90th-percentile month 50).

CHELSA shortwave radiation at each envelope cell, a daily-mean flux taken to a daily total and converted at 2.07 mol of PAR per MJ. The sky over the habitat, measured; what reaches a plant under a rock, a shrub or a shade cloth is not.

Warmth and air Cold floor -1.2 °C (1st-percentile habitat night, NASA POWER).

This species’ habitat figures, with their source.

Temperature

Coldest: the 1st-percentile night over 44 years at the typical cell is -1.2 °C, the absolute minimum -6.6 °C, about 7 frost nights a year (NASA POWER daily minima). Warmest: the 99th-percentile day is 32.0 °C. Monthly means: coldest night 5.9 °C in January (across the envelope cells 3.4 °C to 9.1 °C), warmest day 26.5 °C in May (median year across the envelope cells, CHELSA). Cold floor: -1.2 °C, which is the 1st-percentile night over 44 years at the typical cell (NASA POWER).

NASA POWER daily minima and maxima 1981–2024 at the typical cell, lapse-corrected to its elevation; CHELSA monthly means, median year across the envelope cells, CHELSA. The cold floor is the figure named in its sentence. Not a measured survival limit for any plant in a pot.

Humidity

Relative humidity at the habitat: 47 to 63% across the year (monthly means, median year across the envelope cells, CHELSA). A figure about the air, saying nothing about how the plant takes water.

CHELSA relative humidity, median year across the envelope cells.

The figures the cards read from are in Climate below, and where they came from in Natural habitat.

Climate across the habitat

Habitat climate through the yearMean day from 20 °C in Jan to 27 °C in May; mean night from 6 °C in Jan to 13 °C in Jun. The cold quarter, Dec to Feb, is the three months around the coldest night. 707 mm of rain a year, most in Jul. The bands show the 10th to 90th percentile across 866 habitat cells. Over 44 years at the typical cell the absolute minimum was -6.6 °C and the 99th-percentile day 32.0 °C; neither is dated to a month. Beneath: daily light integral and relative humidity through the year, each on its own scale.-10°10°20°30°40°frost32.0° 99th-percentile day (undated)-6.6° lowest night in 44 yrs (undated)°C · day and nightcold quarter050100150200250300mm rainDLI 30–47RH 47–63 %JanFebMarAprMayJunJulAugSepOctNovDec
day night rain 10th–90th percentile across 866 habitat cells cold quarter: the three months around the coldest night extremes over 44 years at the typical cell, marked at the edge: undated DLI, mol/m²/dayRH %each on its own scale
Figures by month
JanFebMarAprMayJunJulAugSepOctNovDec
Day °C20 / 17–2322 / 19–2524 / 21–2826 / 23–2927 / 22–3025 / 21–2823 / 19–2623 / 19–2622 / 19–2522 / 19–2521 / 18–2520 / 18–23
Night °C6 / 3–97 / 4–108 / 5–1110 / 8–1412 / 9–1513 / 10–1613 / 10–1513 / 10–1512 / 10–1510 / 8–148 / 6–117 / 4–10
Rain mm17 / 10–2612 / 8–168 / 4–1517 / 5–3243 / 19–79123 / 72–218159 / 97–261138 / 84–243119 / 78–21551 / 34–9012 / 9–218 / 5–12
DLI32 / 30–3438 / 36–3944 / 42–4547 / 45–4946 / 43–5040 / 37–4539 / 35–4238 / 35–4134 / 31–3734 / 31–3633 / 31–3430 / 28–32
RH %52 / 48–5550 / 46–5447 / 42–5247 / 42–5352 / 45–5759 / 53–6462 / 58–6762 / 58–6763 / 59–6860 / 54–6455 / 49–5953 / 49–56

Each figure is the median across the 866 grid cells holding the 1676 in-range records, with the 10th–90th percentile span across those cells after the slash where it differs. Extremes and elevation were read at the typical cell 1383:1589 (20.825, -100.525). Over 44 years there: absolute minimum -6.6 °C, 1st-percentile night -1.2 °C, 99th-percentile day 32.0 °C. Normals: CHELSA V2.1 1981–2010 climatology, 0.05° cells (each the mean of ~36 1 km pixels). Envelope: median and 10th–90th percentile of each month across the 866 distinct grid cells holding the 1676 in-range records; extremes and elevation at the typical cell 1383:1589 (its coldest month's mean night nearest the median across cells); its position is the cell centre. Extremes: NASA POWER (MERRA-2) daily 1981–2024, cell 21.00_-100.625, lapse-corrected +255 m at 6.5 °C/km. Elevation: ETOPO 2022, 2297 m (cell mean).

Natural habitat

Native range as published by WCVP; the marker is where the records are densest and decides nothing: the climate was read across every in-range record's cell, not at the marker.
Openly licensed records inside the range, framed on where they fall.
NativeMexico Central, Mexico Northeast, Mexico Gulf, Mexico Northwest, Mexico Southwest· introduced: India
Map marker19.335, -99.187 · in the densest population, 926 records (54% of those in range)
Evidence usedThe map marker and the climate envelope rest on all 1710 georeferenced records inside the native range; the map shows only the 623 openly licensed ones, which alone would put the marker 137 km away. 14 records outside the range (gardens, roadsides, misidentifications) ignored. 34 in-range records are placed to worse than 10 km and stay on the map but off the climate.
The map markerthe map marker: the openly licensed record nearest the middle of the densest 1° population of the 1710 in-range records; it decides nothing.

Photographs

Tagetes lunulataTagetes lunulataTagetes lunulataTagetes lunulataTagetes lunulataTagetes lunulataTagetes lunulataTagetes lunulata

Photographs: (c) Claudia Ramírez, some rights reserved (CC BY-SA); (c) Alexis López Hernández, some rights reserved (CC BY); (c) John Leszczynski, some rights reserved (CC BY) (4); (c) Jordi Martínez Martínez, some rights reserved (CC BY) (2).

Photographs: iNaturalist did not answer when this page was built; what is shown came from the sources that did.

Papers naming this species

Works whose title or abstract names Tagetes lunulata, most cited first, from OpenAlex (CC0). A mention, not a cultivation source: nothing on this page is drawn from them.

NEMATICIDAL ACTIVITY OF WILD PLANT EXTRACTS AGAINST SECOND-STAGE JUVENILES OF NACOBBUS ABERRANS
M.N. Vázquez-Sánchez, José Roberto Medina-Medrano, Hipólito Cortéz-Madrigal, María Valentina Angoa-Pérez (2018) · Nematropica
Floral Visitor Guilds of Five Allochronic Flowering Asteraceous Species in a Xeric Community in Central Mexico
Dulce María Figueroa‐Castro, Zenón Cano‐Santana (2004) · Environmental Entomology
Producción de estructuras reproductivas y fenología reproductuva de cinco especies de compuestas en una comunidad xerófita
Dulce María Figueroa‐Castro, Zenón Cano‐Santana, Edgar Camacho-Castillo (1998) · Botanical Sciences
Effectiveness of Vectors of Pollen and Longevity of Capitula for Four Species of Asteraceae in Central Mexico
Dulce María Figueroa‐Castro, Zenón Cano‐Santana (2011) · The Southwestern Naturalist
Antifungal potential and chemical composition of Tagetes lunulata Ort. essential oil for the control of Trichophyton rubrum Malmsten
Mitzy I. Rodríguez-Juárez, Enriqueᵼ Arjona-Suárez, Jorge Cadena-Íñiguez, Brenda Karina Guevara-Olivar (2024) · Agro Productividad
Occurrence Download
GBIF.org User (2026) · Global Biodiversity Information Facility
Occurrence Download
GBIF.org User (2026) · Global Biodiversity Information Facility
Occurrence Download
GBIF.org User (2026) · Global Biodiversity Information Facility
Occurrence Download
GBIF.org User (2026) · Global Biodiversity Information Facility
Occurrence Download
GBIF.org User (2026) · Global Biodiversity Information Facility
Occurrence Download
GBIF.org User (2026) · Global Biodiversity Information Facility

Similar habitat climate the 6 species whose habitat climate is nearest this one's: mean day and night, month by month, and rain on a log scale, in calendar order, so a habitat with the same seasons six months out is far, not near. Nothing else counts: not range, not family.

Other Tagetes 4 in the reference

History & registers

Where this page came from built 2026-09-20 · dossier v2 · node
gbif.species answeredcarried from build of 2026-09-19 (offline re-derivation; the backbone was not asked)
gbif.synonyms answeredcarried from build of 2026-09-19 (offline re-derivation; the backbone was not asked)
gbif.vernacular answeredcarried from build of 2026-09-19 (offline re-derivation; the backbone was not asked)
wcvp.distribution answered
gbif.occurrences answeredGBIF occurrence download https://doi.org/10.15468/dl.3h4zam
climate answered
wikidata answeredcarried from build of 2026-09-19 (rederive); that build: carried from build of 2026-09-19 (rederive)
wikipedia answeredcarried from build of 2026-09-19; this build: skipped
inat.taxon not asked
inat.photos.wild answeredcarried from build of 2026-09-19; this build: skipped
inat.photos.cultivated nothing to reportcarried from build of 2026-09-19 (rederive); that build: carried from build of 2026-09-19 (rederive)
commons nothing to reportcarried from build of 2026-09-19 (rederive); that build: carried from build of 2026-09-19 (rederive)
gbif.media answered
openalex answeredcarried from build of 2026-09-19; this build: skipped

Every upstream is recorded as having answered, reported nothing, or refused. Only “nothing to report” is ever shown as an absence. Records came from 53 datasets via GBIF.org; each carries its own licence.