Amy Sobrielo read our earlier post on the disappearing Eurasian Tree Sparrow (Passer montanus) and wrote, “…you’d like to know that they came to my balcony regularly for about three weeks not because we are of the same race… but because my cockscomb (Celosia argentea) plants were all seeding and they love eating the small seeds.”
This sparrow is a generalist, taking whatever it can find. As far as is known, seeds of the coxcomb is a new food source for the record. The cockscomb is a herbaceous plant, a pantropical weed of waste lands. Two commonly cultivated forms are variety plumosa with plumed flowering head (above) and variety cristata with wavy crests of fused flowering stalks.
Image by YC Wee.
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Forgot to tell you that I think my plants are the cristata … red, fan- shaped blooms, the red part really looks like a cock’s comb. When it seeds and you let the flower age without cutting it away, it really seeds profusely.