Here's another one of the Celosia sports I've been talking about in previous posts ... my apologies for not yet writing the piece I really want to do about them, but I got a little sidetracked in my writing tonight, as the following post will demonstrate. This one is a fairly regular visitor to the garden, and I can pretty confidently attest to its origins. This odd little guy is clearly a cross between Celosia plumosa v. New Look and a dwarf version Celosia cristata v. Jewel Box. I mistakenly bought and planted the Jewel Box variety a few years ago, thinking it was a larger version, and it refuses to give up its spot in the garden. New Look is a relatively new, compact (12-14") variety with lovely red foliage that we always plant every year, just to make sure we have the real thing around in the garden.
With any luck, I'll get some better pics of these guys this weekend and elaborate on them a bit more at length. There are more wonders to be seen from the realm of Celosia, so just be patient and stop in again!
4 comments:
I don't think I've ever seen that plant before. It really sticks out. :)
Great shot.
When I saw your very early morning comment at my b I was hoping it was a sign of IVG posts ... And here we have two! :)
These are definitely wild looking flowers! This one looks like a flower growing out of a flower ... :) Just my kind of plant, eh? LOL
I'm looking forward to reading more about them ... and seeing some of the other configurations.
Did you say the celosia dry well? Do they hold their color as well as form? These are really neat flowers.
Howdy ho, FM, O and P4! Glad you like our little "freaks" that pop up every year, and they provide us with no end of wonderment as to the capacity of plants to adapt themselves into rather odd cofigurations! And, since these guys just volunteer their mutations every year, it costs us little more than the effort to weed around them to enjoy their show. Oooh, I just said the dreaded "W" word...
Yes, P4, Celosia dry very well and do hold their color (at least the red ones) for quite a while, especially if they're sprayed with a fixative product once they're good and dry. Unfortunately, these smaller ones don't dry as well as the larger "Cristata" (Cockscomb) ones do ... we have some of those still that are over 3 yrs old and still looking good, if a bit dusty. Lol. The "plumosa" varieties aren't as attractive dried, so we generally just let them go to seed.
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