Re: Mirabilis

Well, talk about coincidences; as I walked through a friend's neighborhood last night, I saw that all the Mirabilis planted on one stretch of street was multicolored - that is, with several different colored flowers on one plant. This I had never seen before. I am talking white, pink, yellow, white with a pink break, all on the same branch. It flies in the face o' mother nature, it does...

And right on the front of one building, was an all white one.

No especially strong fragrance on any of them, and no seed either. A little later we found a mostly white one with an occasional pink break that had a few seeds.

But I also found a bush (they are bush-like here; I don't remember them getting so big back in Iowa...) in front of one house with especially large flowers, they were the normal red-pink, but the centers were a clearer pink. I collected lots of seed.



From: Tony and Moira Ryan <tomory@xtra.co.nz>
Reply-To: tomory@xtra.co.nz
To: Medit-Plants <medit-plants@ucdavis.edu>
Subject: Re: Mirabilis
Date: Sun, 11 Sep 2005 10:19:23 +1200

Bob Beer wrote:
I've seen this reference to the "heavy scent" of Mirabilis jalapa many times, and chock it up to seed catalogue exaggeration. Istanbul is overrun with Mirabilis, it's around just about every tree in the city and front gardens are overflowing with it, but I never smelled anything unless I stuck my face right into it, then I can detect a light fragrance.

A white one does sound nice though!
They used to be petty common in Nairobi too, the municipal beds lining one side of a long public road were completely planted with them, but I never thought of them as scented.

I just wonder if just the white version might be more strongly secented. As we know many white flowers are moth pollinated and mostly smell quite strongly to attract their chosen helpers.

Moira
--
Tony & Moira Ryan,
Wainuiomata, North Island, NZ. Pictures of our garden at:-
http://mywebpages.comcast.net/cherie1/Garden/TonyandMoira/index.htm
NEW PICTURES AND DIAGRAMS ADDED 20/Feb/2005














Other Mailing lists |
Author Index |
Date Index |
Subject Index |
Thread Index