The Dying and Flowering cosmos

In this composite photo, there is a cosmos (秋英) plant at the edge of dying, the one inside a small white cup. That is Abby’s plant taken home from her kindergarten. Abby is supposed to look after it, but she is incapable to do that at her age of six.

The unfavourable conditions which lead the plant to death are:
(1) Lack of watering.
(2) Planted in too little soil (around 27 cu. cm)
(3) Receives inadequate sunshine.

The cosmos plants that grow in a secondary school near my home (see the other photos) are different. They are planted in pots, some arranged in rectangular shape and some isolated ones. It is amazing to find beautiful flowers in yellow and orange growing out of their buds.

Cosmos are herbaceous perennial plants growing 0.3–2 m 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. They attract birds and butterflies. The flower colours are white, red, yellow, pink, purple or even chocolate brown.

Cosmos is native to scrub and meadow areas in Mexico where most of the species occur, Florida and the southern United States, Arizona, Central America, and to South America in the north to Paraguay in the south.