TWISTED™ Orange Cockscomb

This colorful cockscomb features 3-inch-wide "combs" or crested flowers on annual plants 18 inches tall. Delights in the garden or cut and dried for winter arrangements, celosias are one of the mainstays of annual flower displays around the world. The combs are a result of the breakdown in the ring of vascular (water- and nutrient-carrying) cells when they are produced at the growing tip, producing stems that are not round. It is insect and disease resistant, with the exception of spider mites (which are only problematic if the relative humidity is consistently below 30 percent, as in the desert Southwest). Wild celosias are native to the tropics and are noted for having a number of duplicate, triplicate, quadruplicate — up to octuplicate — sets of chromosomes. The cristata group arose in cultivation, and are all tetraploids (having four sets of chromosomes).

2020 – Ball Horticultural featured plants @ Chicago Botanic Garden