Colour my home
Bright and richly-coloured blooms are very popular, especially during festive seasons, writes Stephanie Choo
CELOSIAS are great for creating bold eye-catching effects in the garden. They can be mass-planted but are attractive enough to stand alone as a feature plant. Celosia is a genus of herbaceous plants belonging to the amaranth family, Amaranthaceae. There are about 60 species and the plant is native to Asia and tropical America and Africa.
The genus name is derived from the Greek word keleos which means burning (referring to the plant’s flame-like flower heads). They’re popularly known as woolflower. If the flower head resembles a rooster’s comb like Celosia cristata (often regarded as a cultivated form of C. argentea), it is called cockscomb.
Despite being short-lived perennials, celosias are grown as annuals and mainly cultivated for their ornamental inflorescences that come in many shapes, colours and sizes.
The three commonly available kinds are the plumed-, crested- and spikedtype. They belong to two different species, Celosia argentea (a.k.a. cristata L.) and Celosia spicata. Celosia argentea var. spicata (wheatstraw celosia).
The inflorescences are made up of many small flowers, hence set numerous seeds. Some have maroon leaves, others are light green with mid-rids that are of the same colour as the blooms. The plant ranges in height from 15cm to 90cm. Cultivars from this group of celosias have slender cylindrical spiked-flower in shades of pink. The base of the blooms is silverywhite.
They resemble wheat spikes and are sometimes called wheatstraw celosia. Like the other celosias, their blooms can be preserved to make dried flower arrangements.