chrysanthemum

Any of a large group of plants with colourful, showy flowers, containing about 200 species. There are hundreds of cultivated varieties, whose exact wild ancestry is uncertain. In the Far East the common chrysanthemum has been cultivated for more than 2,000 years and is the imperial emblem of Japan. Chrysanthemums can be grown from seed, but new plants are more commonly produced from cuttings or by dividing up established plants. (Genus Chrysanthemum, family Compositae.)

They were introduced into the West 1789.