Thanks Jed, I hope so too.

Christine,

I have mixed feelings about those flowers. On one hand, I know it's a problem but on the other hand, they're actually quite unusual and pretty.

It does appear to be one of those plant viruses or some other virus-like pathogens that cause split flowers. There is no cure and it will take a lot of work to make sure it does not spread to your other plants. If I had this problem, I would probably bury them right away, primarily because of the amount of trouble it will take to be responsible for them. I have had to discard one plant that looked infected with some kind of pathogen (mottled, soft leaves and buds that split before opening).

Commercial adenium growers really do not know much and probably do not care. I only know of one who is actively cleaning up its stocks (Tropica Nursery out of India, I think). Adeniums in Taiwan, for instance, have tested positive for cucumber
mosaic virus. Even Florida has found this same virus in adeniums there---this is good news because once growers start testing for one thing, they will likely test for other things and we get a clearer picture of what's going on. This means they recognize it as a problem and will probably do something to protect their business. I don't think anyone is doing any kind of testing in Thailand at
all.

Anyway, if I wanted to keep the affected plants, I will not allow them to bloom at
all, let alone go to seed because seeds get infected as well. On top of
that, whatever this is, insects will transmit this pathogen to other
non-adenium plants. For the rest of its life I'd have to treat it like
an Ebola patient--gloves, sterilization of tools before and after use (which I do anyway) but the worst is quarantine. Where I am, this means keeping an infected adenium indoors in its own tent, under lights forever. So I buried it in the yard. I strongly recommend isolating affected plants for now and keeping them out of reach of insects, if possible. As a last resort, I would probably hard-prune them all and keep an eye on what the new growth will be like. Then sterilize your tools. If this is viral, there is really nothing much we can do.

I wish I had better information.

Pagan

Thanks Pagan. Not what I wanted to hear but at the same time it helps to confirm my suspicions. The affected plants have come from one well known grower in Thailand. I won't say their name as I do not want to give them a bad name based on suspicion. Some of my plants were bought established from another grower here in Australia who only buys her seed from this grower in Thailand. And the ones that I have grown myself were seed bought from the same person. I have cut back one of the plants already so I might wait and see what happens with it and try to isolate the affected plants as best as I can for a few weeks and wait and see if the boron will actually fix it. If not then I will know for sure that it is a virus.

I've had a good think about this and a long chat with my friend and I'm not going to panic about it just yet. It could very well be a bug issue and the flowers could be getting stung. I have seen an assortment of bugs on my plants. I have removed all the affected flowers and will continue to use boron and see what happens over the next month. Fingers crossed it isn't a virus.

I have had a few blooms open somewhat incomplete out of a truss of flower buds and the others open fine. Talk of Boron definiciency or other fertilizer micro nutrients.

Someone in Australia posted of mealy bug inside of a flower bud. They had shown it from under a microscope, just was not with the white residue around it.

Virus is also very true as Pagan mentioned and worth a watch.

Rick

Yeh, mealy bugs and aphids are a common problem here. I am out there every day inspecting them and spraying any little buggers I see. I do find them around the outer base of flowers sometimes but never noticed them inside. Will keep an eye out for that too. But the ones that I think might be the problem are little black and orange ones that are about 1cm long.

Hi Christine, there have been several threads on here regarding this very problem. If you do a search for deformed flowers of split flowers within the adenium forum, they will show. Several talk of the boron deficiency you mentioned. I do have to agree, the flower to me is still rather attractive, whatever the cause :)

Gill UK

Thanks Gill, I will do a search and have a read.