I have to admit that some of my clumps have up to 40 scapes in a fairly tight clump. I know they need to be split, but when you have more plants than time, it goes by priority. My point is that crowding can affect your judgement on if a seedling is a worthy keeper. I will sometimes select them more by the crowded results rather than optimum care results.
I do have a seedling that had 40 buds from the very first scape and until it was four years old. There are now two large clumps of it in different places, and both clumps usually only have 20 buds per scape. While the flower is still impressive as a mature clump, it isn't nearly so as it could be in a smaller clump. Since it grows into a larger clump very quickly, I view the stats as a larger clump rather than what I know it is capable of. I also have a huge white seedling where flowers on the first scape were enormous. In the two years since, the scapes have gotten much taller, and branching has increased, but the flower size has decreased, going from 8.5" down to over 7". While still impressive, it isn't the monster it was the first year, and unless you actually measure the blooms, you aren't going to notice a dramatic difference. Since I go for the monster size flowers, I am a little bit disappointed, but still a keeper in my book because the scapes are amazing now.
