Thanks for sharing that Fledgling...fascinating reading! I don't put up feeders for the hummers here, most seem content enough to feed on all the flowering plants I provide. One particular fellow has come back (at least I believe it is the same one) for about 3 years to the ivy geranium/scavaeola planted hanging baskets I have on the garage. Frankly, I'm ready for a new planting scheme for those baskets. Every winter I dream up a new scheme for them, but when spring finally arrives, I feel so guilty about changing the planting on my little hummer friend that I end up putting the same old planting back in anyway...just can't disappoint the fellow...LOL! Re the topr...I remember reading something about that. Isn't topr what also allows birds to survive in cold, wintery climates such as mine? Resin...I enjoyed your link too! I have never heard of a Godwit (cute little fellow) and honestly I thought you were making that name up...LOL! I'm going to have to do a websearch and see if I can't find pics of sunbirds...I've never heard of them either. Nature is truly amazing! Thanks guys for sharing. I hope Coniferfreak gets to see what's been posted. I'm sure she would enjoy it. P.S. Thanks Tcharles about the hibiscus. I did plan to make cuttings. Was wondering if you knew which technique would work better; dipped in rootone and the struck into the soil or rooted in water? I've always had amazing success with rooting coleus in water and it's a great way to carry them over since a juice glass of water is much smaller than a pot and allows me to grow many more cuttings in my garden window. Was wondering if I could grow hibisucs cuttings in water? Eileen

Hello Jim, Thank you for the offer. I'll be purchasing Tosca (purple/pink clone) from Woodlanders in a few weeks if they've still got it available. I already have Lohengrin (white w/red eye) in the ground. Woodlander's list is pretty long, so I'll probably pick up several other species while I'm shopping. In all likelyhood I won't be able to do much in the way of crosses for a few years until the plants are established. Which is fine... Even if none of the crosses work out I'll still have beautiful hibiscus to look at and enjoy. It's funny, the biggest problems we had in CA with the mutabilis were bud-worms. They consumed the flower buds before they could open and quite often you'd find them inside the seed pods to. On the moscheutos, the bud worms made more than half the buds drop before they could open if you didn't spray the plants from bud set thru bloom. Here in MO we haven't had a single issue with budworms on any of our hibiscus (or geraniums for that matter), but the leaf eating insects turn the leaves in to swiss cheese if you're not watching out for them. If you happen to have any seed available for the cubensis this year I would definitely be interested. We're in zone 5b according to the "old map", or zone 6 if you go by the new one. If I could get cubensis to bloom from seed started during winter then planted out in May, I'd like to try a few crosses with my moscheutos varieties to see what happens. I like the face-forward, overlapping petals of it as well as the color. I'm glad to have met you Jim, it's been fun discussing hibiscus with you. I'll try sending you another email sometime tomorrow. It will have "poultryguy" in the email address... perhaps your email blocker will let it through this time. Take care, Dan

I have a bud that just broke on one of the hybrids, from the Archeri x White Angel, it is dark purple, very very tiny flowers, maybe less than 1inch … the others have buds but nothing else has broken open yet. I’m happy to see that white parents produced color, archeri is blood red so I’m very interested now to see the open flower some have crazy leaves too, one of the berigated ones made it, the leaves look really unhealthy

Brian, I will try to cover some of the possibilities. ON A SIMILIAR MATTER, DO I UNDERSTAND IT CORRECTLY, THAT A SPECIES CAN BE SELF INCOMPATIBLE OR TOTALLY THE OPPOSITE AND SELF SET SEED WITH RESULTING SEEDLINGS BEING IDENTICAL? Yes, and no. Compatibility within a species may be one of several different types, the most common involves what is called the S gene (often called the S locus). In diploids, individuals can only be heterozygous at the S gene and usually within the species there are many different forms of the S gene (the forms are called alleles). Perhaps as many as 25 alleles. Therefore individuals within the species might be S1/S2, others might be S3/S8, or S11/S12 or S2/S3 and so on. An example: an individual that was S1/S2 will not produce seed when pollinated with its own pollen (S1 or S2), it would produce abundant seed when pollinated by an individual that was S3/S4 (etc) and less abundantly if pollinated by an individual that was S2/S3 (since only the S3 pollen would work). Those would be the typical results. However, there could be individuals in the species that had lost, at least partially, the ability to distinguish pollen S-types and they might produce seeds from their own pollen. Also, some species that would be described as typically self-incompatible - may accept their own pollen when pollinated towards the end of their normal flowering season. For self-compatible species, selfing works and they produce seed. The seedlings characteristics depend completely on the genetic make-up (genotype) of the parent. The extent of visible differences between individuals in a species under natural circumstances varies. For example, some species have individuals with different flower colours eg the desert annual Linanthus parryae has some individuals with white flowers and some with blue flowers in the wild - many species have all individuals with the same flower colour. If one were to collect a blue-flowered individual Linanthus and self it one might find only blue offspring or one might find a mix of 3 blue to one white. If one were to collect a white-flowered individual from the wild and self-pollinate it one would only find white offspring. A species may be either self-incompatible or self-compatible. Either type of species may have individuals that are homozygous or heterozygous for particular characteristics, for example flower colour. A self-compatible species may have individuals that are fixed for red flower colour RR and when selfed produce only red offspring. A self-incompatible species may have individuals that are fixed for red flower colour RR (and although not able to be selfed usually) when selfing was successful (or when another RR individual was the other parent in a cross) would produce all red offspring. The genotype of the individuals does not depend on the self-compatibility (or lack of it) except for the single S-locus. If a particular hibiscus species or cultivar is available from multiple origins then the plants may differ in characteristics, including self-incompatibility. This is particularly possible when the plant is not a named/bred cultivar but is an introduction from plants directly collected from the 'wild'. When a plant is selfed and produces replicas of itself (in some manner) that indicates the plant is 'fixed' or homozygous for that characteristic. When a plant is selfed and it produces offspring showing a range of a particular characteristic then that indicates the parent plant was heterozygous for that character). Nasali Pink x Nasali Pink -> 50 pink : 50 cream is an unusual result. I will assume that Nasali Pink was selfed using normal pollinating precautions. The closest simple explanation would be that the ratio was close to 9:7 rather than 1:1. If it was 9:7 then the genetic description of the cross would be: Nasali Pink is AaBb, selfing AaBb x AaBb produces nine offspring that are A-B- where the - may be either, and seven offspring (three are aaB-, three are A-bb and one is aabb). An individual is cream if it has aa or bb or aabb. It is pink in all other cases. That would also mean that there are three kinds of cream. Crossing two creams (derived from Nasali Pink) together could give an enormous number of possible results. cream x cream from Nasali Pink ancestry might produce all cream offspring (aa x aa, or bb x bb or aabb x aabb) or it might produce all pink offspring (aaBB cream x AAbb cream -> AaBb pink. This is known in carnations and indicates that both the A and B gene are involved in the same pathway to create a particular pigment (or pigments). Many of the crosses of cream x cream would produce both pink and cream offspring in different ratios. Does a particular pollination (cross) cause the flower to wither and the pod to start to develop? Do most pods abort before maturing seeds? YES, CV X SCHIZOPETALUS I would interpret this to indicate that the schizopetalus pollen grew down the style and fertilized the ovule starting development of the seed but some incompatibility between the two parents (possibly chromosome mismatch) caused the seeds to abort. The schizopetalus pollen is compatible but the seed formed is not viable. Often due to triploidy of the embryo. If removed from the seed early enough and grown on tissue culture type media many such embryos prove to be viable (in other plant species) and grow into plants that flower. The fertility of such plants would be unguessable. Does a particular pollination (cross) cause the flower to wither but no pod starts to develop (just as if the flower was not pollinated at all)? YES, CV X ARNOTIANNUS AND CV x NASALI PINK. I would interpret this to mean that the arnotiannus and Nasali Pink pollen did not grow far enough down the style and did not fertilize the ovule. This suggests that those pollens are not compatible with CV. Does a particular pollination (cross) produce pods that develop to maturity but the seeds are soft (not mature) or empty or otherwise not normal? YES, BUT THIS HAPPENS AT TIMES WITH OTHER VARIETIES AS WELL. Does a particular pollination (cross) produce few pods with few seeds that appear mature but none of the seeds ever germinate? YES, BUT THIS HAPPENS AT TIMES WITH OTHER VARIETIES AS WELL In both these cases the pollen was compatible and managed to fertilize the ovules but the embryos were not viable. Possibly a chromosome mismatch (triploidy for example). Does a particular pollination (cross) produce offspring that are both pod and pollen sterile? YES, CV X SCHIZO LOOKS TO HAVE PRODUCED OFFSPRING THAT ARE NOT WILLING TO SET SEED USING INTER-RELATED POLLEN. ANOTHER CROSS USING ALBO LACINATUS POLLEN PRODUCED ALL OFFSPRING WITHOUT POLLEN SACS/NON-DEHISCING. ALSO, I HAVE YET TO SET SEED OR HAVE LUCK WITH POLLEN FROM THE SEEDLINGS OF NASALI PINK x SCHIZOPETALUS. The CV x Schizopetalus offspring might be 'triploids' and more or less both pod and pollen sterile. The same may be the case for the Nasali pink x Schizopetalus offspring if they also do not produce seedlings when used as pod parents. There is also the possibility of single genes affecting sterility for pod or pollen or both.