Yes, yes, that's a good one with good color!! Congratulations!!! One of my favorites too!!

Thank you! Yes it is quite lovely waiting for it to open further! This is probably my second favorite after flamenco queen!

I consider it the best commercial Papilio hybrid. The only ummmh... wormwood is its low number of florets per scape.

My very first Exotic Star purchased as something else at an Agway ( a feed an grain store around here) gave me 3 scapes each with "4" flowers!! I thought this was normal! Then a few years later I got one with 3 flowers but never again, it's always just 2 no matter how large the bulb but it can happen so I keep hoping!!

Here is one with 3 flowers from about 8 years ago.

Beautiful and reliable rebloomer, congratulations! Jody

Hi Joy,

She is stunning, congratulations :-)) I just brought mine up from the basement two weeks ago and bud is starting to poke up...WOOO HOOO!!! Last year was my first time with this lovely lady and it seems to grow quite well or at least I haven't killed it...yet :-)))

This was my Exotic Star Last year. Yours is very colorful! More vivid than mine. We shall see if mine is as spotty this year.

I bought one this year too and it has three flowers on the first scape! Flowers do not open fully but I hope this gets better once the bulb is rooted. I dusted one with aulicum and one with evansiarum pollen yesterday and they started to fade immediately...

Anja

Thank you everyone yours are all beautiful - interesting to see the range of saturation in all of them!

Donna mine has two on the first scape as well!

Lokai - yours looks beautiful with more of the green showing through!

Anja, yours is very beautiful! I wish you good luck and hope some fat seedpods come your way!

Hi Anja and Joey,

Very beautiful and I can't wait for mine to bloom.

Anja, I think aulicum is a wonderful choice :-))) I can only imagine what their children will look like. Good luck.

Love it!

Hi, Joy. Your Exotic Star reminds me so much of photos I have seen of H. lapacense . Just beautiful!

What do we know of Exotic Star? Is Exotic Star as we know it just a clone of an individual or is Exotic Star more likely vegetatively produced from a group of especially beautiful hybrid offspring? Donna's shows so m7ch papilio, Joy's seems to take after the other parent. Mine is somewhere in the middle. Are the differences in our plants only due to climactic conditions and culture or are they perhaps genetically different? Might we get seeds from an Exotic Star if we shared pollen amongst ourselves? I am curious.

Although I can not scientifically prove it, it is fair to say that "Exotic Star" is a clone, dating back to one exceptional seedling that is, and that the differences that we do notice are owed to the individual ummh. cultural upbringing. I draw my boldness in this respect, from my observations of my own "Exotic Star" and from uncountable other named hybrids which I saw appearing very differentially over the years. The most dramatic experience from "Royal Velvet" - unfortunately I was yet to have a device to record the puzzling, then.

Thank you for that valuable explanation! It certainly would account for diploid self infertility.

This is my Exotic Star (bought as). Photo taken a week ago or so. I don't know what the big white one is. I thought I had purchased a red one. The white one originally had three buds, but I knocked one off while watering a plant behind it. As of today, the blossoms on Exotic Star have withered (which they started to to within a day or so of opening, the flower getting narrower and narrower), and a new stem is producing flowers. I love the way they look. Better than I expected. The white one is still going strong with its original blooms wide open. The bud that fell off is opening in a glass of water. All and all I am happy with my purchases. Now if I can just get them to bloom next year ...

Another lovely Exotic Star, they all appear slightly different. Exotic Star is rather easy to get to bloom another year which is a good trait.

Anja, how are your pollinations doing??

My husband likes red and was dubious about the striped ones I like, but he was won over by this one -- he said "It's really nice. Now can see why you like them! I couldn't tell from the picture." They grow on you, I replied. I had ordered two of what I thought were some red ones -- "Bogota", to be exact -- to please him, since I want him to be happy. There is one bulb still getting ready to open. Maybe it will be red, but I hae ma doots.

Beautiful blooms monarda!

Hi Monarda,

Well, in the beginning my husband only liked red too but he has come full circle!! He appreciates all of them and is particularly fascinated with Chico!!

I hope you got your Bogota from WFF, I did and it is opening as we speak with 11 flowers!! Your Hubby will love it, I guarantee!! But if you got Bogota from ETGB you might end with a papilio which I did but have no fear, Hubby will love that one too!! Good luck and post pictures of what you end up with.

Donna

Thanks for the tip! Next time I will try White Flower Farm! I really want Bogota, now that I can't have it! I really love the look of small and large flowered red amaryllis flowering together (that was my plan).
Every year we order amaryllis as a Christmas gift for my SIL in memory of her and my husband's father, who always used to send each of our families one. We all still miss him terribly, even though it is now 15 years since he left us. Gradually we decided to order some for ourselves, too, since my birthday comes around that time. Here is the second stem in flower on day 2 (beginning to close up). The original white one is still going strong since last week.

This is a nice story, Monarda! I order them as Christmas gifts for my family too. And some for me of course :-)

Donna, It is too early to be sure but x aulicum seems to be growing... I keep you informed of course!

Anja

Monarda, I really like the angles in the second picture. It is very cozy and the colors are soft. It's a nice photo.

Anja, what is the pod parent again?

Well, Exotic Star of course :-))) I dusted two more flowers with aulicum pollen today. I hope for many seeds I can share...

Hahaha. I must have forgotten which thread I was on! Yes, good luck! That will be gorgeous!

All fingers and toes crossed for this cross for sure!!! ;-))