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Callistephus is a genus with one species, Callistephus chinensis, known as China aster. It is a showy annual grown for its large daisy-like flowers in cottage gardens and as a cut flower.
Callistephus is a monotypic genus of flowering plants in the aster family, Asteraceae, containing the single species Callistephus chinensis. Its common names include China aster and annual aster. It is native to China and Korea. and it is cultivated worldwide as an ornamental plant in cottage gardens and as a cut flower.
This species has been grown and bred extensively in cultivation. Cultivars are available with flowers of many colors, varying heights, and single and double heads. In the wild, they are purple in color. There are several cultivars with flowers of different colors. Cultivars with flowers of other colors were obtained in particular by hybridization. Cultivated varieties can have ray florets in most any color, including red, pink, blue, purple, and white. They are up to 3.5 centimeters long. There are many yellow disc florets in the center. The fruit is a rough-textured, glandular, purple-mottled cypsela that turns gray with age. It has a pappus composed of one outer layer of reddish scales and two inner layers of white bristles.
It has been in cultivation in Europe since 1728 at the latest. In China, it has been cultivated for 2000 years.
This plant is a naturalized species in some areas outside of its native range (Indochina, Europe, North America, Australia, New Zealand, etc.) and can be found on the edges of deciduous forests. It grows at altitudes from 300 to 2700 above mean sea level. As an ornamental plant it thrives on fresh, nutrient-rich, easy-humus rich soils in warm humid air conditioning.
Text excerpted from the Wikipedia article Callistephus by its contributors, under CC BY-SA 4.0; the excerpts and the care summary drawn from them are shared under the same licence.
The care summary was written by AI (Claude, Anthropic) from the sources on this page, with general growing knowledge where they are silent. Check before relying on it.
