The recent very warm weather has by Banksia lutescens exploding into flower, much to my surprise and dismay. I missed many of them before they blew and Katydids ate the stamen from them. I collected all the buds sufficiently developed to provide pollen yesterday. There were a few others today, which I also collected. The delightful discovery was the dried stamen and anthers from yesterday, today had an exquisite, intense, sweet scent of cloves in their baby food jar. I’d noticed a fragrance from them in prior years, but this was unmistakably clove.
Hugonis anthers and pollen have a musky, sweet scent when drying.
Wonderful!
Peter Harris’ R-15 and the old Hybrid Tea ‘Tallyho’ also have very fragrant clove-scented pollen, as I recall.
Got any pictures of ‘Lutescens’ you can post for us, Kim?
All of the lutescens photos I have are either stuck on a broken memory stick. You may see photos of it here. Banksiae lutescens
I hope you had a chance to hit 1-72-1 with some pollen from it! (That’s one I’m dying to try!)
I hit everything with Lutescens! It all depends upon what’s in flower when there’s pollen. I’ve used it on 1-72-1 but that seems to homogenize for mildew. These are the resulting seedlings from (Loving Touch X Country Dancer) X Lutescens. I would have never used LT for anything due to its mildew issues, but it was a seedling shared with me and had all these single flowers “just asking for it” when I had pollen. Even these are “iffy” at this age. They germinated last spring.
[flickr_photo src=http://farm7.staticflickr.com/6057/6851811694_16c4f0de39.jpg nsid=67995840@N04 id=6851811694]ltxcdxlutescens (2)[/flickr_photo]
[flickr_photo src=http://farm7.staticflickr.com/6216/6851811698_9fa7c6ab1d.jpg nsid=67995840@N04 id=6851811698]lt x cd x lutescens (3)[/flickr_photo]
[flickr_photo src=http://farm8.staticflickr.com/7043/6851811704_5b1b177311.jpg nsid=67995840@N04 id=6851811704]lt x cd x lutescens (2)[/flickr_photo]
[flickr_photo src=http://farm7.staticflickr.com/6057/6997938793_b677a007f4.jpg nsid=67995840@N04 id=6997938793]lt x cd x lutescens (1)[/flickr_photo]
Quite a variation in vigor and foliage, and none of them really great at this stage.
The roller coaster weather (hot, cold, hot, cold) has triggered a “rebloom” on the Lutescens in back. Interestingly, instead of the traditional five petals with a petaloid or two, they are now developing four, five and more petaloids, of course at the expense of stamen and anthers. Nothing has changed except the heat/cold cycle so it’s not due to fertilizer or any sprays as there have been none. I’m also finding there is significantly less pollen released from these flowers than there was from the first flush so it’s a whole lot more difficult to get any, even after drying and grinding them. I wonder if this plant is trying to mutate to Lutea?
Interesting… I have wondered if the various Banksiae were sports of one another, or different seedlings. (As species roses, do they come true from selfs?)
The seedlings in your photos show less banksia influence in the foliage than I would have expected. I would expect the young to be mildew prone though, no? Hopefully they grow out of it somewhat.
“Mildew prone” is very generous, Philip! There is enough change in the foliage from the seed parent that I believe there are some lutescens genes involved, and the mildew is pretty much the give-away.
