Celosia nitidaVahl

West Indian cock's comb

WFO wfo-0000593131 Accepted WFO 2026-06 8 photographs CC0 / CC BY

Plate 1 figs. a–h · 8 separate observations

Celosia nitida, photographed by Center for Urban Ecology
fig. a Center for Urban Ecology, CC0 1.0 / 2021-09-21 / obs. 159058183
Celosia nitida, photographed by Cat
fig. b Cat, CC BY 4.0 / obs. 101820002
Celosia nitida, photographed by Eric Knight
fig. c Eric Knight, CC BY 4.0 / obs. 71216463
Celosia nitida, photographed by Daniel Cahen
fig. d Daniel Cahen, CC BY 4.0 / obs. 61217676
Celosia nitida, photographed by Sam Kieschnick
fig. e Sam Kieschnick, CC BY 4.0 / obs. 18035526
Celosia nitida, photographed by johnyochum
fig. f johnyochum, CC BY 4.0 / obs. 4760140
Celosia nitida, photographed by Alison Northup
fig. g Alison Northup, CC BY 4.0 / obs. 169691459
Celosia nitida, photographed by Alison Northup
fig. h Alison Northup, CC BY 4.0 / obs. 28502389

Every figure is a research-grade observation under CC0, CC BY or CC BY-SA, rehosted with the photographer’s name, the licence and the observation it came from. Photographs under a NonCommercial licence are excluded from this site and are never stored, which costs us a great many pictures and is not negotiable.

Native range 17 botanical countries

Regions where Celosia nitida is native: Florida, Mexico Gulf, Mexico Northeast, Mexico Northwest, Mexico Southeast, Mexico Southwest, Texas, Bahamas, Cuba, Dominican Republic, Guatemala, Haiti, Jamaica, Leeward Is., Puerto Rico, Venezuela, Windward Is. FloridaMexico GulfMexico NortheastMexico NorthwestMexico SoutheastMexico SouthwestTexasCubaDominican RepublicGuatemalaHaitiJamaicaPuerto RicoVenezuela BahamasLeeward Is.Windward Is.
Native distribution of Celosia nitida, after Kew’s World Checklist of Vascular Plants. Introduced, extinct and doubtful records are excluded, so this is where the plant is from, not everywhere it now grows. Regions too small to draw at this scale are marked with a dot.
RegionTDWG codeContinent
Bahamas BAH SOUTHERN AMERICA
Cuba CUB
Dominican Republic DOM
Guatemala GUA
Haiti HAI
Jamaica JAM
Leeward Is. LEE
Puerto Rico PUE
Venezuela VEN
Windward Is. WIN
Florida FLA NORTHERN AMERICA
Mexico Gulf MXG
Mexico Northeast MXE
Mexico Northwest MXN
Mexico Southeast MXT
Mexico Southwest MXS
Texas TEX

Region boundaries approximated from Natural Earth (public domain) and mapped to TDWG World Geographical Scheme for Recording Plant Distributions (WGSRPD) level-3 botanical countries (Brummitt 2001). Indicative, not the official WGSRPD geometry.

Where it actually grows measured, from 114 observations

Condition 5th percentile Median 95th percentile
Coldest month, mean daily low 6.3 °C 12.4 °C 21.8 °C
Warmest month, mean daily high 29.2 °C 34.5 °C 36.0 °C
Annual rainfall 566 mm 820 mm 1,163 mm
Rainfall in the driest quarter 69 mm 107 mm 177 mm

It is barely found anywhere that freezes. This is not care advice and it is not a forecast. It is a measurement: we sampled the climate at every one of the 114 research-grade observations of Celosia nitida that carry a coordinate, and this is the range those places actually span. The 5th and 95th percentiles are used rather than the minimum and maximum, because a single cultivated specimen in a heated conservatory should not widen a tropical plant's range to the Arctic.

This is not a hardiness zone. A USDA zone is the average annual extreme minimum temperature. The figure above is the mean daily minimum of the coldest month, which is a different quantity and is typically far warmer. Reading one as the other would place a plant several zones too warm, so we do not publish a hardiness zone, because we do not have one.

Also published as 1 synonym

A synonym is not an error. It is a record of botanists disagreeing, in print, about where this plant belongs. Each of these was somebody’s considered answer.

  • Celosia parviflora Vahl ex Moq.

Sourcesevery claim on this page

  1. World Flora Online Plant List. accepted name, authority, classification. CC0. Retrieved 2026-07-12.
  2. iNaturalist. photographs and flowering annotations, CC0 / CC BY / CC BY-SA only. per photograph. Retrieved 2026-06-27.
  3. Wikidata. common name (P1843), joined on the World Flora Online identifier (P7715). CC0. Retrieved 2026-07-13.
  4. Kew, World Checklist of Vascular Plants (WCVP v16). native distribution by TDWG level-3 botanical country, and life form. CC BY 3.0. Retrieved 2026-06-04.

We publish what we can source and we say so when we cannot. This page has no care advice and no toxicity claim, because we do not yet have those from a source we can cite.