You're responding to an old thread, Christine, and I think the information in the thread has been rendered obsolete.
According to the updated data in the Catalogue of Life (July 29, 2014), Tagetes patula is still a provisionally accepted name, and it is not a synonym for Tagetes erecta.
http://www.catalogueoflife.org...
Tagetes erecta is also an accepted name, and T. patula is not one of its synonyms:
http://www.catalogueoflife.org...
The main problem I see now is that we had merged the T. tenuifolia entries with the T. erecta entries at some point, but COL now recognizes T. tenuifolia as an accepted name, so those entries will have to be separated again.
