Re: HYB: Observations

It is very dry here.  Humidity is very low. Afternoon winds add to the
drying process. By the time the flower is fully open, a lot of the anthers
are all dried and shriveled. Some dried up before part of the anthers were
able to dishease all the pollen.

One exception I noted. WORLD WITHOUT END.  WWE did not dishease any pollen
until the next day on its first flower, and then it dried up rapidly with
the afternoon heat.  The second and third flowers opened and I plucked the
anthers right away in the early morning and put them in a container with a
lid inside the house.  The next morning, most of the pollen had disheased
and was light and fluffy. The pollen on WWE seems to be very small in
comparison to the pollen grains of others, and it was difficult to see when
applied to a stigmatic lip.

Mega pollen was noted on Swing Dancing.  The pollen is very fluffy, tons of
it, and a menthol blue color.  There is so much of it and it spreads so
easily for some reason, that each and every flower was self pollinated.  You
look in a flower of Swing Dancing after a wind and the entire inside of the
flower, the style arms and backs of the falls had pollen all over them.


In dry conditions like this it is difficult at best to make crosses.
Watering the garden the night before and getting up early in the cool
morning to cross a freshly opened flower has aided the situation.

Patrick Orr
Phoenix, AZ  Zone 9
USA

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