This orange flower cloaks Mexico during Day of the Dead. Climate change is putting it at risk

This orange flower cloaks Mexico during Day of the Dead. Climate change is putting it at risk World Oct 30, 2025 12:19 PM EDT

MEXICO CITY (AP) — Lucia Ortíz trudges through endless fields of cempasuchil flowers, the luminescent orange petals of which will soon cloak everything from city streets to cemeteries across Mexico.

Here, in the winding canals and farms on the fringes of Mexico City, the flower also known as the Mexican marigold has been farmed for generations, and takes the spotlight every year in the country’s Day of the Dead celebrations.

But as 50-year-old Ortíz and other farmers busily bundle clusters of the plant to sell in markets around the capital, they quietly wonder what will be left of their livelihood down the line.

That’s because cempasuchil growers say they’ve