Tagetes lucida
The Huichol (Wixárica) call Tagetes lucida (Mexican Marigold), a plant native to the Americas, Tamutsáli and Yahutli. Its brightly-colored flowers are used in religious ceremonies on home altars as incense and decorative folk art associated with the Day of the Dead throughout Mexico and have a pre-Columbian origin. Siegel, Collings and Diaz document how the Huichol mix Tagetes lucida with tobacco (Nicotiana rustica), which they call Yé: “In ceremonial uses, the Huichol smoking of the yé/tumutsáli mixture is frequently accompanied by ingestion of peyote, tesquino or nawa (fermented maize drink) cái or sotól (cactus distillate), and tepe (another alcoholic beverage). Such combinations inevitably produce extremely vivid hallucinations, but less intense visions are obtainable with the smoking mixture alone.”
In a fascinating article by a team of researchers led by Laura White Olascoaga, T. lucida (which they call pericón) is considered a link that joins the present with a pre-Hispanic past in that Yauhtli was strongly connected to the gods of rain and vegetation and was a symbolic offering as part of this vision of the cosmos. After the Conquest, with the advent of Christianity, T. lucida was associated with San Miguel, who was considered the divine protector of harvests, having power over lightning and storms. This belief persists in rural Central Mexico through the use of four bunches of T. lucida flowers tied together in the form of a cross and placed over the doorways of farmers’ homes and work places.
Medicinally, the fresh herbage is used to treat abdominal pain, to promote lactation, and to alleviate rheumatism. New research has shown that extractions from T. lucida can be used on a large scale as a natural insecticide to protect crops from infestation.
María Eva González-Trujano and a group of Mexican scientists published a study in which “preliminary data provide evidence and give support to the properties attributed to T. lucida in the traditional medicine to alleviate pain.” The authors highlight this plant’s ancient uses among the Nahuatl ethnicity and affirm that T. lucida “was and remains one of the most sacred plants used frequently in Mexico.” In their conclusion, they affirm that extracts of T. lucida “did not produce gastric damage at antinociceptive doses,” which is considered “the most common adverse effect of analgesic anti-inflammatory drugs” used in pain therapy. This, therefore, makes T. lucida a more appropriate candidate for use in treating gastrointestinal diseases.
Another team of researchers from Mexico headed by González-Trujano and G. Pérez-Ortega, investigated the ethnobotany, phytochemistry and pharmacology of the tranquilizing properties of Tagetes lucida. The project was undertaken in Mexico’s Morelos State (which was formerly inhabited by Olmecs, Tlahuicas and Xochimilcas) in recognition of this area’s longstanding and “large biocultural heritage that is reflected in the traditional knowledge of the use and management of plants.” The research methodology included interviewing eight traditional healers (five women and three men) as well as twenty-five merchants of medicinal plants (seventeen women, eight men) about how they are accustomed to treat anxiety. As a result of these conversations, the scientists discovered that T. lucida “was not the most important species for treating ailments of the nervous system, but it was well-known for these properties.” In the markets, T. lucida was not sold alone, but rather in preparations that were mixtures of “other well-known anxiolytic plants, such as Ternstroemia sylvatica, or T. pringlei, Citrus sinensis, Passiflora incarnata or Agastache mexicana.” In addition, the scientists prepared extracts of T. lucida to examine the plant´s sedative-like effects on laboratory mice, which did show “a significant but non-dependent decrease in the ambulatory and exploratory activities,” which they attributed to the coumarins contained in this plant species used traditionally in Mexican ethnomedicine as a tranquilizer.
Scientists from Texas and Mexico led by Julianna Kurpis studied the projected effects of anthropogenic climate change on Tagetes lucida in the coming decades and concluded that the habitat of this plant, “a native medicinal plant of important cultural and economic value in Mexico,” will become increasingly restricted and fragmented in scenarios modeled for 2050 and 2070. They also maintain that “current suitable habitat is threatened by agriculture, deforestation, and overgrazing.” The researchers highlight the importance of studying all these factors so that this information can “be used to help establish sound conservation plans, non-existent to date, for the species.” Certainly, this is undeniably prudent ecological advice that might well be applied to a wide range of other plant species, including, of course, those that pertain to the Microcosms electronic herbarium.
