Flower for the Day Celosia 10-1-25

We have had a huge crop of celosia (Celosia cristata) for many years. It is an edible oriental in the Amaranthacea

family and is native to East Africa. When the flower head is crested by fasciation as shown it is called cockscomb.

Its other name , celosia spicata, is seen in the spiky flowers below the cockscomb.

One of the issues with it being edible is that this year the  deer have been savaging them, so much so that I covered this one with deer netting. This created its own problem - I saw some movement and there was a swallowtail butterfly trapped in the netting. I carefully freed it up and it immediately landed on my nose. I was so surprised that I let it stay there for awhile and then nudged it off.

           Cockscombs;

        There should be
        Fourteen or fifteen.
 

             Shiki

             trans. Blyth

"Every masterpiece is a flower on a precipice to be picked only with spiritual danger. The risk is life itself. It is too much to hope every poetry-lover will unfailingly grasp all subtleties of the creative act, but no artistic masterpiece exists without the danger of its being misunderstood. It is a tremendous assertion for the poet to have said, 'There must be fourteen or fifteen stalks of cockscomb.' After we read this poem we cannot imagine the possibility there could have been more or fewer cockscomb than fourteen or fifteen."

   Keene