Yesterday's seedling bloom .....
This is the second year for this seedling blooming. This is ZZZ38 (Galaxy Explosion x Lily Munster). The scape was as tall as the flower was big.
Bloom and scape were a little deformed:
Last year the scape was short, too. It had a 10" scape with a 6 1/2" bloom. It bloomed a month later last year (April 2016). This is a photo of it last year.:
It is typically a beautiful bloom, but the scape is just way too short.
Today, I had a first ever bloom on one of the (DD x DD) x (DD x DD) crosses. DD=Dragonfly Dawn. Both parents have since perished. But I collected seeds from a cross I made with the 2 siblings before they both died.
Here is the first ever bloom of SSS67 (ZZZ66 x ZZZ67). It did the canoeing thing with the petals. I've had the canoeing happen on the parents, too, which typically happens with the first bloom or if it is a cool morning (it was 55 degrees this morning).
Ugly first bloom, but I can see the DD genes even in the curled petals:
At the end of the day, this is how it eventually looked. It shall be interesting to see what subsequent blooms look like from this seedling:
These are the parents of SSS67:
Pod parent: ZZZ66 (This was a disappointing loss of a seedling for me, because I was actually going to evaluate it and possibly name and register it. It died in 2015.)
This is the pollen parent: ZZZ67 (Another sad loss. It died in 2016.)
As far as the death of the parents .... maybe I over cared for them. Or maybe there is something about the genetics in DD that don't like growing in central Florida?
