I know of this flower as 'love-lies-bleeding', which sounds rather dire
and it is also known as pendant amaranth, tassel flower, velvet flower,
foxtail amaranth and quilete.
The beautiful red colour of the florets is from a high
concentration of betacyanin and amazingly make thousands of seeds, which,
along with the leaves are edible, feeding lots of people in places like
India and South America.
The botanical name originates from the Medieval Latin caudatus for 'tailed' or 'elongated/lengthened/extended'...and as the photo below shows - the tails certainly are long and end up lying, bleeding on the ground...
I've been patiently, well, fairly patiently waiting for this very showy
plant to get up a head of steam and bush out a bit - although I think I
have left my run a bit too late for this climate, as our first frost
happened last weekend, which seems really much too early, don't you
think?
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