Cosmos (plant)

Cosmos are herbaceous perennial plants or annual plants growing 0.3–2 m (1 ft 0 in–6 ft 7 in) tall. The leaves are simple, pinnate, or bipinnate, and arranged in opposite pairs. The flowers are produced in a capitulum with a ring of broad ray florets and a center of disc florets; flower color is very variable between the different species. The genus includes several ornamental plants popular in gardens. Numerous hybrids and cultivars have been selected and named.

Cosmos species are native to scrub and meadowland in Mexico where most of the species occur, the United States, as far north as the Olympic Peninsula in Washington, Central America, and to South America as far south as Paraguay. One species, C. bipinnatus, is naturalized across much of the eastern United States and eastern Canada.[5] It is also widespread over the high eastern plains of South Africa, where it was introduced via contaminated horsefeed during the Anglo-Boer War.[6]

Cosmos flowers in Showa Memorial Park, Japan

Cosmos and a girl

Cosmos sulphureus

Accepted species[2]

• 
  Yellow cosmos flower in Kerala, India
• 
  Yellow-orange cosmos, Kerala, India
• 
  Cosmos and old house in Japan
• 
  Cosmos flower in Korea
• 
  Cosmos atrosanguineus, the chocolate cosmos

Wikimedia Commons has media related to Cosmos (Asteraceae).

Wikispecies has information related to Cosmos.

• Germplasm Resources Information Network: Cosmos
• Flora of Bolivia: Cosmos checklist