Hi, all,
I’ve been waiting (infuriatingly impatiently) for “Robin,” one of my 2005 seedlings, to bloom this year. Last year, she made the most beautiful flowers full of crepe-paper petals. A daughter of Fa’s Marbled Moss, she also is a moss, and has spots so large they almost make her white. She also has a rather decent fragrance.
I thought the beautiful petal structure might have been a fluke, although all her flowers had it. I had this terrible aching suspicion that this year her petal structure would be normal.
It wasn’t! (Bounce, bounce, bounce!) Her first flower finally opened today, and the petals, while a bit beetle chewed (no spraying this year), are as crinkly and lively as ever.
Has anyone ever seen this effect before?
I’m given to think (which should not be allowed) hard on this. I noticed that in this first batch of FMM seedlings, out of 8 that bloomed, four were spotted like FMM, three were not, and then there’s this… Makes me wonder if spotting, or at least the kind FMM shows, is a simple dominant trait. The results would seem to indicate that FMM is herself heterozygous for spots since she produces both spotted and unspotted offspring. And Robin (which I may introduce if I can propagate her easily)… might she be homozygous for spots?
What makes me think this is that when I dry Fa’s Marbled Moss to preserve the flowers, the spots dry a different texture than the rest of the petal (much thinner). So I was wondering if perhaps Robin’s crinkly petals are the results of homozygous spots being so large.
Anyway… this is all way too much fun for one retired professor to have. Here’s a picture, enjoy! Any comments, ideas, suggestions… I’d love to hear them!
-Fa
