Hulthemia Petals - New and Old

Today, there were many new seedlings blooming for the first time necessitating much culling.  There were many Hulthemias that had to be culled today, and many more that will be culled in the next few weeks as the seedling greenhouse explodes in color with new blooms on new seedlings.  In the first photo below, you can see the Hulthemia seedlings that didn't make the cut.  Each petal represents an individual seedling.  As can be seen, many of the petals are similar.  If plants and blooms were seen, the differences between seedlings would be easier to appreciate.  The petal/blotch represent just one trait of interest in determining which seedlings to discard, and which to keep.

The next photo represents petal for petal, surviving Hulthemia seedlings that bloomed today.  Of course it remains to be seen which will be more floriferous and which will have greater cleanliness, so it is possible that ultimately none of these will survive.  For now however, they continue to grow in the greenhouse seedling beds.

The final photo in this post is of petals of Hulthemias that have survived the test of time.  These represent some of the best that have grown in our greenhouse over the last 5 years.  From these, pollen was harvested that will be used tomorrow in crosses with the objective of developing still better Hulthemias.  One of the petals below comes from a new Hulthemia that is being introduced by Star Roses that is being named 'Eyeconic™ Lemonade'.  Some of the others are still under evaluation.