That is exciting news! Happy belated birthday too.

Cheers,

Blanca

Wow! I can't wait to see these doubles. Obviously Dancing Queen has pollen - nice for breeding those eye popping doubles. Thanks for sharing the pics. - J

And here they are. The first is a pleasant bright red double, a little bit ragged in parts, but quite easy on the eye.

{{gwi:390756}}

The second reminds me of the reason I did this cross in the first place, to try to get a closer and closer approximation of Dancing Queen, and this one really does come close. Again, there is a little bit of disorder in the petal arrangement, but itâÂÂs not a bad dancing queen look-alike.

{{gwi:390758}}

So it looks like there will be a full range of varieties from this cross. I planted around 40 seedlings in 2011, and a dozen or so are now in bud, so I hope to find some more treasures.
One interesting feature of the red flower is a series of tiny stamens growing from beneath one of the petals. ItâÂÂs hard to see the tiny filaments but they are hanging down from the petal above. I have not seen this before. Has anyone else ever come across this?

{{gwi:390760}}

Your results are truly lovely Zep! Congratulations!

Those tiny Filaments with a knob on their top should be the clutch of eggs from an insect, supposedly a LACEWING

Here is a link that might be useful: Chrysoperla

Hans-Werner... Thank you for confirming my hunch. I was hesitant to comment just in case this was some odd mutation!! I have seen this before and it was insect eggs...

HippieZep.... These are lovely blooms, but I'm curious, what did you envision for this cross? I only ask because whenever I make a cross, I have a vision in my mind what the results could be. If I had made your cross, I'd hope for H. Benfica's color and G. Dancing Queen's form. That would be amazing.

It's always fun to see everyone's blooms. Thanks for sharing!!
K

Haweha - thanks for the info. That's good news too - I have been googling lacewing flies thinking they may be pests, but it looks as though they are in fact the pests' worst nightmare.

Kaboehm - the idea here was to get something approximating a variety that does not breed or set seed, like dancing queen and apple blossom. I managed to get a cross of dancing queen with Benfica that had a functional stigma, so pollinated it again with DQ to try to get something closer still to the pollen provider. The second one above has succeeded in this to some extent, although it looks as though this will be the exception to judge by the buds appearing.

I'm also waiting patiently for the first result for San Remo x Apple Blossom - the buds are growing and it won't be long now. If it does produce something apple blossom-like, I will certainly be on the lookout to cross this hybrid with apple blossom again.

A few more individuals have emerged from this patch and there is quite a variety. Most are bright red, with only a few the pale pink candy stripe typical of Dancing Queen. Some are rather ordinary red-white, while most have a bit of doubling.

{{gwi:390761}}

{{gwi:390763}}

{{gwi:390764}}

{{gwi:390766}}

{{gwi:390768}}

{{gwi:390769}}

{{gwi:390771}}

One out of the crop is remarkable for the sheer quantity of flowers - there are no fewer than 5 large double flowers on each of two scapes coming into bloom simultaneously, and a third scape is in bud at the base.

{{gwi:390773}}

How can I see the pic ?

None of us can see the pictures. PhotoBucket has gotten greedy and is now charging, I think it's $100 (maybe more) a year for using their photo storage and unless the people pay, their photos can no longer be viewed on forums like this.

Originally, we could see all the photos of course, but this just happened about 1 year or so ago. Not everyone on this forum used PhotoBucket so that is why some of the pictures on older posts are still viewable.

Donna

Is there a better way to post the photos here?

Well, I just load them on my laptop. I have some 11,000 pictures and from the laptop they can easily be uploaded up here on the forum. My laptop has Window's Live Photo Gallery which for me works perfectly. Even if I take them off of my computer they still stay on the forum. Of course, I only keep on the computer the ones I would like to use or view again, the rest are deleted.

In the past I used Picasa but they too have changed and are no longer user friendly. I have found that if I inadvertently moved around any of my pictures in my Picasa albums that they then disappeared from the forum, so I no longer post or actually use Picasa but a good many of my photos are still being stored there but I also have them on my computer I don't download music or movies on my computer so all of my available storage goes for my pictures and emails.

Donna

Does this work?

Very good result! The flowers are spotted and they are not inclined, which is otherwise likely in a Double due to the weight.

Great. So long Photobucket.

Wonderful, thanks. I was just trying to retrieve them

Hippiezep, that spotted one is lovely! Oh my gosh, so cute!