154 BRECK’S NEW BOOK OF FLOWERS. 
CELOSIA.—Cocxs-come. 
(From a @reek word, signifying burnt, because the flowers of some of. the 
speties appear as if they were singed.] : 
Celésia cristéta.—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 when 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 
