Hosta Flowers

OK, OK,  I give up.  Hosta flowers are beautiful.  What could I have
been thinking?

There is a noisy crowd outside right now with torches threatening to
drag me from my house and burn me at the stake for hosta heresy.  I have
insulted the glory of the hosta and a fatwa has been issued calling for
my head.

Come on guys, you don't scare me.  The fact remains, regardless of your
protestations, my beloved genus hosta has a very ordinary flower at
best.

I'm not saying that they are ugly.  Very few flowers are ugly.  I'm just
saying to anyone who tells me that hosta flowers are beautiful, have you
ever seen a dahlia? A hibiscus? Ever looked closely at a snapdragon?
Come on guys, if hosta flowers aren't ordinary, what is.  Even petunias
have ten times the character of a hosta flower.

Yes, a mass of lancifolia is beautiful.  So is a mass of dandelions.
Name me one significant flower that isn't beautiful in mass.  Yes, there
are some hostas that have interesting flowers - when compared to other
hostas.  Except for hosta collectors, not one person in a million would
choose a hosta flower over a daylily.  OK,  maybe if you choose the best
hosta flower and put it up against the worst daylily flower, people
would choose the hosta, but if that's the best argument you can come up
with, I win.

For those of you who are not yet convinced, and I'm sure there are many,
I offer this challenge.  Make a list of the qualities you would like to
see bred into hosta flowers, what are the goals that hosta breeders
should be striving for to make hosta flowers more beautiful.  Then take
that list and show it to daylily breeder, or a dahlia breeder, even a
chrysanthemum breeder and compare it to what they are striving for.  And
it's not just that their goals make ours seem rather humble, its that
they will probably reach theirs, and I see no evidence of significant,
and I emphasize significant, improvement in hosta flowers short of
genetic manipulation.

I rest my case and await your next volley.

Chick

Oh God, the mob is growing angrier and they're throwing their torches on
my roof!




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