Arctotheca Species, African Calendula, Cape Weed, Cape Daisy, Cape Marigold

In North America, this species has naturalized in California and southern Oregon. The CAL-IPC has listed it as invasive of natural habita...Read Moret in California.

Not at all invasive in my area (FL - zone 8/9). Died back during the winter and then promptly returned as it warmed. It's bushy and beautiful now.

Arctotheca calendula is a plant commonly known as cape weed, cape dandelion, or cape marigold because it originates from the Cape Provinc...Read Moree in South Africa. It is listed as a noxious weed, however, it is cultivated as an attractive ornamental groundcover, but has invasive potential when introduced to a new area.
Capeweed is fairly tolerant to grazing, is more soil acidifying than clover on a per kg basis, tends to have higher cadmium levels than clover and grasses and Zinc, supplies about 3 times more cadmium to grazing animals than clover or annual ryegrass in typical field conditions, has higher levels of copper and molybdenum and lower levels of sulphur than clover during the growing season, has greater nitrogen uptake than either wheat or lupins which reduces nitrate leaching in cropping systems, and is very efficient at absorbing, storing and reducing soil nitrate levels in pasture systems.

I wish I could grow this plant as easily as the New Zealander and the Australian!

This plant grows rather strangely from...Read More seed.The first year it produces a very flat plant with ragged leaves, hardly any flowers, and looks like a squashed dandelion!

I was going to throw them away in disgust in the spring, when one plant produced this beautiful creamy yellow, black-centred flower. From then on the plants transformed into wide-spreading plants like Osteospermums, but far prettier, and flowered until autumn (fall).

Unfortunately, I could not obtain cuttings or seed and they died during the first frost.