Hello and apologies in advance if this comes off as too long winded and rambly.
The closest place that sells Adenium is 1250 km away from where I live, so my only option is to order online. I've bought most of my seeds from that seller on account of at least being in the same country, but I've also bought some from a seller on Etsy.
But how do you know that you're getting what you're ordering until the plant is mature and blooms? Is there even any certainty that the seeds will develop the same way that the mother plant? There seems to be endless varieties and it's hard to know if a seller is using their own photos or just something they found online. The Etsy seller came highly recommended and from reviews, it seemed that their photos were genuine.
The seeds from the "local" seller have had a pretty low germination rate on most varieties (Somalense being the exception, 100% germinated and are alive after 2.5 years). I am guessing that the low germination rate is due to the seeds not being fresh.
The ones I bought from Etsy got me 28 plants from ordering 20 seeds as there were extras, all of them germinated and while 3 died, I got 3 surviving cuttings, so it evened out.
The Etsy seeds were supposedly 4 varieties of Adenium Obesum: Grace, 7440, Pink Panther and Golden Year. So far, only one of them has bloomed. It was supposed to be a Pink Panther, but looked like this:
It looks a lot more like a Chorfa from the same seller. Is it likely that the seeds are from a Pink Panther mother plant that got pollinated by Chorfa?
Then we have the ones from the "local" seller. These two were in the same pack of "Adenium Obesum Triple Flower":
They look nothing alike, one with flashy flowers and one with plain red ones. The first one (I call her Tracy because her designation in my system is 3C) has the same shape of the flowers but different colours every time it blooms, ranging from almost white with pink patterns to solid hot pink. Is this normal? The other varieties I have look more or less the same every time, but they all have simple flowers. Either way, Tracy is the gift that keeps on giving, blooming the first time 11 months from seed and over and over ever since. She may not have as chonky a caudex as many of the others, but she sure makes up for it in flowers!
And then there's this...
It's meant to be an Adenium Obesum 7440, but I don't quite know what to make of it. The long, curved leaves are fuzzy both top and bottom. I've seen varieties where the leaves curve up like a boat shape, but these curve upside down by comparison. Would anyone happen to know what it might be? The other ones from the same pack have "normal" leaves that are not fuzzy on either side. It has flower buds now so hopefully the flowers will develop and give a hint.
One thing I suppose one can never know is how the caudex is going to turn out. I absolutely love all the weird and wonderful shapes they end up in.
Somalense
Black Somalense
All in all, growing from seed is a bit of an adventure, a quest of exploration, full of surprises. If you read this far, thank you for joining me down the rabbit hole.
