Joseph's Coat
Amaranthus tricolor
Native across tropical climates in the southern hemisphere, Joseph's Coat is a colorful annual with multicolored foliage.
In a 1786 list of seeds sent from Paris, Thomas Jefferson mentioned several amaranths, including the "three-colored Amaranth."1 This popular annual is one of the most dramatic flowers in the summer display at Monticello. The pan-tropical genus is native across Asia and South America. Most species were introduced from the East Indies to Britain around 1600 and several species were common in early American gardens, including Joseph's Coat, Love-lies-bleeding, and Prince's Feather.2 John Lawson makes reference to this plant in his book, A New Voyage to Carolina (1709).3
Many are large, showy, voluptuous plants with colorful foliage and floral parts. It is a summer flowering annual, and its multi-colored foliage varies from green, bronze, or purple to brilliant maroon or crimson, which often suffuses with yellow and rose-pink.
Further Sources
- Adams, Denise Wiles. Restoring American Gardens: An Encyclopedia of Heirloom Ornamental Plants, 1640-1940. Portland, Oregon: Timber Press, Inc., 2004
- Thomas Jefferson Center for Historic Plants
In Bloom at Monticello is made possible by support from The Richard D. and Carolyn W. Jacques Foundation.
When you're here...
Between April and October, all house tours come with a free guided Garden Tour, or you can explore the grounds on your own with the Bloomberg Connects App
Shop
Heirloom Seeds and Plants from the Monticello collection
Plant history in your gardens with seeds and plants from Monticello and the Thomas Jefferson Center for Historic Plants.
Footnotes
- Betts, Garden Book, 635. See also Edwin M. Betts, Hazlehurst Bolton Perkins, and Peter J. Hatch, Thomas Jefferson's Flower Garden at Monticello, 3rd ed. (Charlottesville: University Press of Virginia, 1986), 52.
- Alice M. Coats, Flowers and Their Histories (London: Black, 1968), 14-15. See also David Stuart and James Sutherland, Plants from the Past: Old Flowers for New Gardens (London: Penguin Books, 1989), 73-74.
- John Lawson, A New Voyage to Carolina (London, 1709; reprint, Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina, 2001), 79, 89. Text available online at Documenting the American South.