The Mexican aster is a medium-sized flowering herbaceous plant, native to the volcanic mountainous region of Central Mexico. From its humble origins it has been cultivated and bred for a few hundred years; today it is one of the most widespread annual flowers in the world, being found on all continents except Antarctica.
The Spanish priests who cultivated these flowers in their mission gardens were so taken with the evenly placed petals that they christened them ‘Cosmos’, the Greek word for ‘ordered universe of harmony’.