Hi jungle,

All things are possible when it comes to plant pollination schemes, I don't think anyone can ever say "never" :-) However, normally plants do not cross-pollinate outside of their species (interspecific crossing). I think you would be safe to plant the bipinnatus cosmos near the sulphureus cosmos. Just my opinion of course.

Art

this presumes ... the plants are actually properly named ..

i always presumed .... once given.. a latin plant name is next to God.. unquestionable ...

and in the years i have been hanging out in the conifer forum ... i am surprised how many discussions there are on renaming various plants.. once they actually cone ... and as a tree.. that is 10 to 20 years later ... [that means changing the second latin name]

i know nothing about cosmo ID ... just a random.. early morning thought ...

and the easy solution ... think outside your box of 2 spots ... think 3 ... two spots isolated.. for seed collection of the pure strain ... and one in the middle with the mix ... to SEE WHAT HAPPENS ...

but i doubt it matters.. short of a few hundred acres.. you are presuming bees have a limited range.. and i am pretty sure.. they cover huge areas ... as in miles ... so no matter what you do.. the bees will most likely defeat your purpose of isolation ...

ken

I fear you may be out of luck. While many cross species examples exist in the plant kingdom, Googling "Cosmos sulphureus crossed bipinnatus" has a couple of folks saying it wont happen there. Although it appears they both can cross pollinate with Cosmos astrosanguineus...go figure.

tj

This post was edited by tsugajunkie on Wed, Dec 26, 12 at 4:01

so whats your point junkie...

its all greek to me.. or i suppose.. latin ...

so we set up a menage et trois ... with the third party .. and repeated plant fornication over the generations.. back and forth.. until zenman comes up with his dream plant. . sounds simple enough.. given a decade or two..

BTW jungle.. my apologies .. lol ..

do you know how to protect a given flower .. to insure the seed remains what you wish??? .. some use nylons.. paper bags etc ... you have to cover the flower.. when its able to 'take' viable pollen.. just long enough.. to protect it from those darn bees making crosses on them .. and then you would harvest just the flowers you protected ... though it might be easier.. to just buy a new pack of seeds every few years ... the real trick is to know when the given bloom will be fertile.. and if that is the crack of dawn .. well.. some of us forget to run out there and basically.. put the condom on.. the night before.. or that early morning ...

and it is usually at this pint.. that i declare one of two things ...

1--- i love to breed my own unique cultivars.. lol ..

or

b--- its part of my master plan on developing something new ...

either involves having a good excuse for doing little or nothing .. other than collecting ripe seed in fall. and spreading them in spring.. lol ..

ken

There are a lot of species of Cosmos. At least some of them can cross-pollinate to create F1 hybrids. For example, Cosmos sulphureus can cross with Cosmos pacificus. Both species have 12 chromosomes. Incidentally Cosmos bipinnatus also has 12 chromosomes, so there shouldn't be a chromosome count barrier to making a hybrid with either sulphureus or pacificus. But there can be other barriers.

There are several techniques for overcoming barriers to hybrid crosses, but most of them, if not all of them, are beyond the scope of amateur plant breeding.

If there was an economic market for extending the color range of the Sea Shells cosmos to include the yellows, oranges, red-oranges, and scarlets, then it could be done. But doing it would require an outlay of money, which might not be recouped with a seed-propagated ornamental such as Cosmos.

One edited-in-comment I would like to add (i-Village, I really appreciate being able to do this): I would like to point out that amateurs can approach a plant breeding project without proving its profitability to a management review. I do my zinnia breeding purely for fun and enjoyment, and since it is a hobby, I spend money on it rather than make money from it. So I am free to tackle any zinnia breeding project that appeals to me, within reason. And an amateur cosmos breeder would also enjoy that freedom.

But the answer to Jungle's original question is, go ahead and plant your cosmos where you want, with no fear of them crossing and thwarting your plans to save seeds.

ZM

This post was edited by zenman on Thu, Dec 27, 12 at 19:08

"so whats your point junkie... "

Gaaa, I confused the OP with another poster and thought the OP wanted to cross.

Yes, jungle, it should be safe to plant them together.

tj

Hi Zen Man, I'm after some information on Zinnias. Is Zinnia Red Lime a hybrid? Am I able to save the Zinnia Red Lime seeds and will they be true to type? Thank you, Joanne

Hi Joanne,

Zinnia Red Lime is a hybrid, but not an F1 hybrid. As you can see from this link about Queen Red Lime, you can expect some variation in the seeds directly from the packet, so you can also expect some variation in the seeds that you save from them. But not all variation is bad, and you might even like some of your specimens better than the packet description. So save seeds from your favorites, and you will be having the fun of breeding your own zinnias. We have an on-going series of message strings by the same name, It can be fun to breed your own zinnias. You are invited to join in.

ZM (not associated with any product or vendor mentioned or linked)

Thank you Zen_Man. I'll have a look at that link!

Just in case anyone comes across this thread and wonders what the answer is...they don’t cross-pollinate. I have been growing both types of cosmos for years and haven’t had any mixing between the two. Too bad. :)

Hi Carolinaflowerlover,

" Just in case anyone comes across this thread and wonders what the answer is...they don’t cross-pollinate. "

Thanks for adding that. I said the same thing in my message back on December 26, 2012, but that might have taken a bit of re-reading this whole message thread to find that. So your message is appreciated.

ZM

Thank you for the ongoing conversation on this thread - my interest stems from wanting to save flower seeds, and I'm wondering is there any rules that will help my understanding ongoing and steep learning curve? I've found lots of information with regard to saving vegetable seeds but not so much on flowers. So for instance I've looked up information on carrot seeds when looking at the Chocolate Laceflower, but not all flower seeds have vegetable relatives. Big question and I'm an amateur, but just thought I'd throw the question out there. Thank you.

Hi joanne,

You might want to take a look at some of these books at Amazon. Amazon has a Look Inside feature that lets you take a look at some book pages to decide if that book interests you enough to purchase it.

ZM (not associated with any product or vendor mentioned or linked)

Thanks again, I'll do that.

Just looking at the titles now, fabulous, thank you so much.

Zen_man since this is 9 years after your comment about breeding your own seashell like zinnia i am curious how it has gone. have you had any breakthroughs since your comment.

Hello, sunflower,

I have had a few breakthroughs in my zinnia breeding, but still nothing comparable to the Sea Shells cosmos. Botanically speaking, any part of a plant that is capable of making a seed is defined to be a "flower" and each zinnia petal can produce a seed at its base, so each zinnia petal is botanically a "flower". Some of my hybrid zinnia petals do resemble flowers in their own right. As usual, you can click on the photos to see larger versions.

Some of my zinnia tubular petals are almost needle-like.

I have a variety of "flower-like" zinnia petal forms.

But so far, none of my zinnias have petals that resemble sea shells. Zinnia DNA molecular strings have genes encoded on those strings and between those gene sequences, there are seemingly random sequences that are thought to be fragments of previous prehistoric genes. I think there is some slight possibility that the hybridization process between two different gene sequences could recombine different fragment sequences to re-form a previous prehistoric gene. We might get a glimpse at what was possible in prehistoric zinnias. That is why I am so keen on making hybrids between hybrids between hybrids.

ZM

@zen_man!!! those are stunning!!! thanks for sharing!!! If you ever want to trade seeds let me know I would love to grow some of them!!!