neverspent | January 26: Cockscomb through the seasons (Reply)

My dad knows an old, old lady who loved to grow flowers while she was still able to get around. One of her prides was her cockscomb. One year, she gave my dad some seeds. He planted them in front of the house and they did very well in the well drained soil and full sun. In fact, they did so well and dropped so many seeds that he has hardly had to plant them since; seedlings come up by the thousands in the spring and they merely have to be thinned and transplanted. He has so many that he gives them away.

I have received a few seedlings in the past couple of years, and I've really enjoyed watching they way they grow. Cockscomb are so bizarre and beautiful. They look like a tropical bird with different kinds of feathers on different parts of its body: some kind of clumpy, some feathery, some just weird. The flower starts out looking almost like a pair of velvety lips and eventually grows into a scarlet "brain" squiggly pattern above. Late in the fall, the heavy head starts to fall and turn brown bit by bit. Now, in the middle of winter, it's all grey-brown and in some places looks like a wet mammal. Fascinating.

July