I think the first one is a mutant. The second one looks immature. Are these bought seeds or saved seeds. If it's saved seed that can happen. If it's bought seed--Growers are cross breeding flowers all the time trying to get new varieties. Usually the undesirables are discarded but once in a long while 1 gets into regular seed. This has only happened to me twice in 40 years of gardening and buying my seed from quality seed catalogs.
Once I had the ugliest petunia I've ever seen. It had a huge flower. It must have been about 8 inches across on this tiny about 4 inch plant. It was so big it didn't even have the classic petunia shape. It got pulled up and discarded and I told the seed company about it. They apologized and sent me a free package of seed but no explanation

These are purchased seed. Here they are today, a week later

Interesting--I've never seen a zinnia grow like those with the button under the petals. Is that how they are supposed to look or did you not have a picture on your seed packet or catalog. Anyway enjoy having a few odd balls in your garden that are not ugly to look at. Actually the color combination looks good

See if Zenman checks in. He's our resident zinnia man. He enjoys the oddities that are a part of what make zinnias so unique and fun. He might even want you to send him some of the seed from those odd flowers.

Hi gumneck,

I have never seen a zinnia exactly like that. I suspect it is a mutation. At first I suspected a disease, but since you have three instances of it, a genetic cause is probable. I don't care for it, so I don't need seeds from it, but if you "like" it, or are just curious, save seeds from it and plant them to see what you get. I did have this odd zinnia at one time, that yours reminds me of.

Sometimes the seeds from a mutant can turn out better than the mutant, so it might be worth your while to save seeds from your mutant, just to see what you get.

Whenever there is a car wreck, passersby slow down to get a look. It's natural human curiosity. I guess similar psychology applies to when zinnia genetics "have a wreck". This is not a case of "curiosity killed the cat" and it can't hurt to see what the seedlings from your odd zinnia might look like. One of my odd mutants looked quite ugly:

But it did have star-pointed petals, so I took a chance and crossed it onto some of my breeder zinnias, and got some unusual results that I liked.

I encourage experimentation with zinnias.

ZM

Thanks ZM.

I love that pink zinnia in the last photo. I've read some of the threads about creating unusual zinnias and wish I could get motivated to try doing that. I love seeing the results. I will save some seed from this one to see if it replicates. My first thought was disease. We have had a lot of rain.

Hi gumneck,

" I've read some of the threads about creating unusual zinnias and wish I could get motivated to try doing that. I love seeing the results. "

Well, when you said, " I will save some seed from this one to see if it replicates " you have at least "put one toe in the water." And just saving seeds from your favorite zinnias constitutes breeding your own zinnias. And since zinnias are naturally pollinated by bees, I like to say "be the bee" and do your own zinnia cross pollination.

After all, the bees are just gathering pollen or nectar for food, and any actual pollination they do is purely accidental and incidental. You can do a much better job of pollinating your zinnias than the bees do. Cross-pollinating two zinnias is just a matter of picking a pollen floret (the fuzzy yellow starfish-shaped parts) and rubbing it on the stigmas (the Y-shaped components at the base of each petal) of another zinnia. As the British would say, easy peasy.

Breeding your own zinnias can be as casual or intensive as you want it to be. In just a few minutes of pollen dabbing you can create a surprising number of hybrid zinnia seeds of your own choosing. And you get to pick the parents. Think about it.

ZM

ZM

I may do it. i guess I was thinking about things I've read and seen about people hybridizing daylillies and hellebores. On Gardeners World (watched via YouTube) there was a segment on a woman hybridizing hellebores and she was very methodical as fast as labeling, capturing seed, etc. Fascinating but you can't cut corners which is more my gardening style. I will try the rub technique and see....