Hello Folks,

It's raining. So nice to see puddles and trickles! Maybe 2012 will prove
to an improvement weatherwise over 2011. Still a long way from overcoming
the drought, though.

Last year was so poor for bloom, I didn't get to see many new things. This
one was the most interesting to me. It's one I call a 'derivative'. That's
my term for those that have a parent with a set of unbalanced chromosomes.
In this case the pod parent is Ashleigh Nicole (TB) X Kiosk (AB).
Unfortunately there are four choices for the pollen parent. That was the
result of a collision of my theories and reality. The theory is that if
everything is perfect many of these plants can produce viable seeds. After
growing this plant for many years it never hinted at setting a pod so the
reality was that I didn't believe it ever would. The theory kept me putting
pollen on the blooms as I walked by, and dutifully recording what I'd done,
but I didn't believe it would happen. So the theory kept me daubing, but
past experience told me it was useless so I didn't stick to my usual method
of using pollen from one plant. But the conditions were right and I got two
pods and one pod germinated three plants. That was the first time I'd ever
had that many siblings from such a cross. Only this one bloomed. Once my
belief in the pod parent was restored, I did better and now have a single
seedling using Babylonian Fires as the pollen parent.

Hoping for a great New Year for everyone.

Donald Eaves
d*@txol.net
Texas Zone 7b, USA