I am so happy I am almost without words. For years (on ATP and elsewhere) I have congratulated those who had plumeria seed-pods and at the same time lamented my inability to ever have a single one in over 25 years of growing plumeria. That has now changed.

At first I called this particular plumeria seedling "historical" because of its very early flowering, but then sort backed off of that label. Now, I am again calling it a historical plant. Not only was it only 13 mo. old when it began to form inflorescences, and flowered at 15 mo., this particular plumeria is now forming multiple seed-pods. I just saw these newly-forming seed-pods today and couldn't believe my eyes. The plant is now17 mo. old. This seedling was named for its fragrance by my wife, Kathy. She named it Kathryn's Honeysuckle Rose. I also looked up some records on the seed and saw that the seed-pod parent was 'Pauahi Ali'i'. I guess the flowers do sort of resemble this parent's flowers. Not only has this plumeria been in bloom for three months, it has now formed three tips and the plant is approximately 4' tall. It seems to have adapted well to the conditions in the solarium. The leaves are all nice and green, no rust whatsoever, and only a little leaf loss when they were first moved inside (so far).

Oh mannn! Pop the champagne cork!
And those are gorgeous blooms they came from, Ken!

Oceania, as soon as I showed my wife the seed-pods, she said "Ice down a good bottle of Champagne". She knows how long I have waited for these first pods.

Cool!!!

Congratulations, Ken! It looks like a more apt name might be 'Fertile Myrtle'

Boy oh boy, that label surely fits.

She is pretty, Ken; congrats!

congrats!

Congratulations Ken. This IS a historical plant in so many ways!!

That is so cool! All around. This is SOME plant! Now if you want to rid yourself of some of those seeds. [wink]

Remind me in late spring, as the pods begin to approach "release-time" (if they don't abort or whatever the term is). The only pods I have ever had were given to me in early fall and it was the following summer before the seeds were ready for germination. So it could be two years before mine are ready. @Hetty and others (@Gigi, @Patty, and @ Elaine) would probably know how long this pod-formation to seed-sowing takes.

That is wonderful! So remarkable and such a beautiful bloom. Congratulaions!

Mary.

I had seedpods formed late Spring and did not ripen until late summer following year. But who knows your historic plumeria's seedpods might ripen earlier

Babies, babies babies!!

Give or take nine months.

GigiPlumeria said:I had seedpods formed late Spring and did not ripen until late summer following year. But who knows your historic plumeria's seedpods might ripen earlier

Is 15 months typical?
Do your plants typically make seed pods?

I found it interesting obviously Ken grows a lot of plumeria and has for a long time, yet he had never seen seeds.

There would have to be pollinators present. In my yard (across from a golf course which of course gets sprayed regularly) I get fewer seedpods than at the Botanical Garden where we use minimal pesticides. This picture was taken at the Botanical Garden. It is not uncommon there to see multiple pods on one branch.

with Hetty. This year, I did not get any seedpods at all, but part of the reason is that it had been raining a lot and the pond at the back of our house got sprayed a lot this year to prevent mosquitoes. Some of my plumerias attempted to form seedpods earlier this year (before the rainy season) but got aborted. The only reason I could think of that they fell off is related to too much rain around July and August. (Same reason that some of my outside Catt orchids sheaths failed to bloom because of too much rain.) I think plumerias prefer a period where the soil (or media) has a chance to dry before getting watered again.

I am not sure exactly why Ken had never seen seedpods before, not sure if he cuts the Branches with inflo too soon, not realizing there were seedpods on it. Only Ken can answer that. I don't cut any branches with inflo still intact, I let the inflo fall off on its own.

We certainly grow differently. Mine will never be "trees" simply because I have to bring them in each fall and overwinter them until March/April. Thus, I do take a lot of cuttings. We have lots of pollinators here, so that can't be a problem. I have grown them on the Gulf coast as well as here in NE Mississippi. I always thought my lack of pods was because my season was too short and the fact that a lot of my mature (think 20 years old) plants are cut back pretty much every summer/fall.

The cutting back is probably the cause.