154 bkeck's new book of flowers. 



CELOSIA.— Cocks-comb. 



[From a Greek word, signifying burnt, because the flowers of some of the 

 species appear as if they were singed.] 



Celosia cristata. — Cocks-comb. — Is a well-known ten- 

 der annual, of which there are many varieties, as in the 

 balsam, and which, like that plant, will attain a large size, 

 and singular beauty by repeated shiftings. Thunberg 

 states that in Japan the flowers or crests are frequently 

 a foot in length or breadth. The following account is in- 

 serted, to give some idea of what may be done by artifi- 

 cial means. " Mr. Knight, in October, 1820, sent to the 

 London Horticultural Society a Cocks-comb, the flower 

 of which measured eighteen inches in width and seven in 

 height, from the top of the stalk ; it was thick and full, 

 and of a most intense purple-red. To produce this, the 

 great object was to retard the protusion of the flower- 

 stalk, that it might become of great strength. The com- 

 post employed was of the most nutritive and stimulating 

 kind, consisting of one part of unfermented horse-dung, 

 fresh from the stable, and without litter, one part of 

 burnt turf, one part of decayed leaves, and two parts of 

 green turf, the latter being in lumps of about an inch in 

 diameter, in order to keep the mass so hollow that the 

 water might escape and the air enter. The seeds were 

 sown in the spring, rather late, and the plants put first in- 

 to pots of four inches diameter, and then transplanted to 

 others a foot in diameter ; the object being not to com- 

 press the roots, as that has a tendency to accelerate the 

 flowering of all vegetables. The plants were placed with- 

 in a few inches of the glass, in a heat of from 70'^ to 100° ; 

 they were watered with pigeon-dung water, and due at- 

 tention paid to remove the side branches Avhen very young, 

 so as to produce one strong head or flower." 



The color of the scarlet varieties is highly brilliant. 

 None of the other colors are so rich. The yellows are 



