Chocolate Cosmos

Did you know

• The blooms smell genuinely of chocolate—specifically of vanilla and cocoa—an aroma that intensifies in the afternoon heat to attract specialist pollinators.
• Considered extinct in the wild for nearly a century, every chocolate cosmos in cultivation today is a clone of a single sterile plant collected in Mexico in 1902.
• In 2022, a new fertile form was finally bred by Japanese horticulturalists, ending 120 years of botanical bachelor existence.
• The Latin 'atrosanguineus' means 'dark blood-red'—the velvety petals are nearly black in low light and produce a rare floral pigment called cyanidin.
• Despite its scent, the plant is not related to true chocolate (Theobroma cacao); the resemblance is pure aromatic coincidence and a botanical magic trick.

Color meanings

Uses

• Container gardens
• Borders
• Cut flowers
• Specimen plant