BEIJING — When Mao stirred China with a call to let a hundred flowers bloom, he surely never imagined anything as frivolous as this.

Across China, people are sporting plastic decorations on their heads in the shape of vegetables, fruit and flowers.

When the trend started a few months ago, it was usually just a humble bean sprout clipped to the hair and erect like a little green flagpole. The slim green shoot seemed to offer a kind of mute protest against the gray, stressed environment of the city.

But as the fad escalated, especially during the current National Day holiday week when Beijing fills with visitors, it has grown to include a riot of plastic vegetation. Now heads are bristling with clover, sunflowers, chrysanthemums, lavender, mushrooms, chilies, cherries, gourds and pine trees.