Silver Cock's Comb

Celosia argentea is locally escaped from cultivation, and perhaps originally native to India.

Annual herb, erect, 0.4-2 m, simple or with many ascending branches. Stem and branches strongly ridged and often sulcate, quite glabrous. Leaves lanceolate-oblong to narrowly linear, acute to obtuse, shortly mucronate with the excurrent midrib, glabrous; lamina of the leaves from the centre of the main stem 2-15 x 0.1-3.2 cm, tapering below into an indistinctly demarcated, slender. petiole; upper and branch leaves smaller, markedly reducing; leaf axils often with small-leaved sterile shoots. Inflorescence a dense (rarely laxer below) many-flowered spike, 2.5-20 x 1.5-2.2 cm, silvery to pink, conical at first but becoming cylindrical in full flower, terminal on the stem and branches, on a long, sulcate peduncle up to c. 20 cm long, which often lengthens during flowering. Bracts and bracteoles lanceolate or towards the base of the spike deltoid, 3-5 mm, hyaline, ± aristate with the excurrent midrib, persistent after the fall of the flower. Perianth segments 6-10 mm, narrowly elliptic-oblong, acute to rather blunt, shortly mucronate with the excurrent midrib, with 2-4 lateral nerves ascending more than halfway up the centre of each segment, margins widely hyaline. Filaments very delicate, free part subequall¬ing or exceeding the staminal sheath, sinuses rounded with no or very minute intermediate teeth; anthers and filaments creamy to magenta. Stigmas 2-3, very short, the filiform style 5-7 mm long; ovary 4-8-ovulate. Capsule 3-4 mm, ovoid to almost globular. Seeds c. 1.25-1.5 mm, lenticular, black, shining, testa very finely reticulate.

Herbs, annual. Stems erect, to 1 m, glabrous. Leaves: petiole 1-3 cm; blade unlobed, ovate, lanceolate, or nearly linear, 8-15 × 1-6 cm, base tapering, apex long-acuminate. Inflorescences dense cylindric or ovoid spikes, units 13-20 mm diam. Flowers: tepals silvery white or pinkish, 3-veined, 6-8 mm, scarious, translucent; style elongate, 4 mm, indurate and exserted at maturity; stigmas 3. Utricles 4 mm. Seeds 3-8, 1.5 mm diam., smooth, shiny. 2n = 72.

Herbs annual, 30-100 cm tall. Stem erect, green or red, glabrous, often branched. Leaves green, often tinged red; petiole absent to 1.5 cm; leaf blade oblong-lanceolate, lanceolate, or lanceolate-linear, rarely ovate-oblong, 5-8 × 1-3 cm, base attenuate, apex acuminate or acute. Spikes narrowly cylindric or with a conic apex, 3-10 cm, not branched. Flowers dense. Bracts and bracteoles white, shiny, lanceolate, 3-4 mm, with midvein, apex acuminate. Tepals white, with a pink tip or nearly pink, then white, oblong-lanceolate, 6-10 mm, with midvein, apex acuminate. Filaments 5-6 mm, free part 2.5-3 mm; anthers purple. Ovary shortly stalked; style purple, 3-5 mm. Utricles ovoid, 3-3.5 mm, enveloped in persistent perianth. Seeds compressed-reniform, ca. 1.5 mm in diam. Fl. May-Aug, fr. Jun-Oct. 2n = 36, 72, 84*.

W-E Nepal: Bhutan, Cambodia, China, Japan, Korea, India, Laos, Malaysia, Myanmar, Philippines, Russia, Sikkim, Thailand, Vietnam; Tropical Africa.

Distribution : Practically a pantropical weed, in Pakistan as elsewhere on waste ground, in cultivated fields, along roadsides etc. on sandy or stony soils.

introduced; Ala., Fla., Ind., Ky., La., Md., N.J., N.C., Pa., S.C., Tenn., Tex., Utah, W.Va.; West Indies; South America; native to Asia (India).

500-1600 m

Flowering summer.

Herbs

Waste places, weedy areas; 0-1400m.

Hillsides, field margins, a common weed. Anhui, Fujian, Gansu, Guangdong, Guangxi, Guizhou, Hainan, Hubei, Heilongjiang, Henan, Hubei, Hunan, Jiangsu, Jiangxi, Jilin, Liaoning, Nei Mongol, Ningxia, Qinghai, Shaanxi, Shandong, Shanxi, Sichuan, Taiwan, Xinjiang, Xizang, Yunnan, Zhejiang [Bhutan, Cambodia, Japan, Korea, India, Laos, Malaysia, Myanmar, Nepal, Philippines, Russia, Sikkim, Thailand, Vietnam; tropical Africa].

Celosia swinhoei Hemsley.

Plants: medicinal.