COCK'S COMB, in botany, a cultivated form of Celosia cristata (family Amarantaceae), in which the inflorescence is monstrous, forming a flat "fasciated" axis bearing numerous small flowers. The plant is a low-growing herbaceous annual, bearing a large, comb-like, dark red, scarlet or purplish mass of flowers. Other species of Celosia cultivated are C. pyramidalis, with a pyramidal inflorescence, varying in colour in the great number of varieties, and C. argentea, with a dense white inflorescence.