Since the last one opened today, thought I'd send the parent and the
offspring together to perhaps give some idea of why I'm so pleased. The
cross is ((Friendship x (Rosemohr x Esther, the Queen)) x Energizer or
Babylonian Fires). I hope those parentheses are in there correctly. The
experiment had to do with some of my theories. The primary one here is that
Friendship and Rosemohr are TBs that have an immediate arilbred parent, one
as a paternal parent and the other as a maternal parent. I wondered if that
might be an indication of more compatibility between the species chromosomes
and whether using them might result in a higher germination rate if you
could get plants using them with an AB parent. Following that route didn't
have much to do with bloom and the parent of the three offspring (Friendship
X (Rosemohr x Esther, the Queen) pictured on the left gives all the
appearance of a not too good, old form TB. The little lines visible around
the beard and the growth appearance of the plants made me think the
seedlings sorted out as OGB- types, but I wasn't sure. May not be any way
to be really sure. However, they set seed reluctantly and those seeds
germinated reluctantly and the results seen in the offspring aren't at all
typical of what I see with a TB x AB. Didn't prove anything really. Not
nearly enough plants involved to establish whether the theory has any
validity or not. The plants set seed slightly better than I'm accustomed to
seeing and the germination from the seeds obtained was slightly better - but
only very slightly. I can't even be positive this is the parent of the
three shown. I think it is but I treat them as a group. Mostly they were
all white with a few pale lavenders. All had the lines around the beard.
All show the loose form, poor substance and tendency to have crimped falls
as seen here. I sure didn't expect the drastic improvement. I'm not going
to credit Ene! rgizer (I'm doubtful these are from BF) with giving it
altogether either. It worked really well as a pollen parent the year this
pod was produced, so I'm seeing a number of results from it. It seems to
bring a good bit to the table when paired with the right ABs, but not much
with others and not very much used with TBs. Seems to need a good AB match
to pair with. The longer term object is to maintain the sturdy, healthy
growth habits displayed by the unattractive parent while keeping improved AB
blooms :). They have to be fertile for that to happen, so I'm pleased the
cousin or, more likely, half sibling has set pods.

Donald Eaves
donald@eastland.net
Texas Zone 7b, USA