Hybridizers: It can be fun to breed your own zinnias - Part 3, 1 by Zen_Man

Zen_Man wrote:
John,

" 14' x 98' " That's huge. The zinnia seedling in your first picture looks like it is "stretching" for light. Is it possible that some of the brown spots are just brown soil or growth medium that has splashed up on the zinnia leaves?

I'm attaching a picture of one of the seedlings saved from an odd specimen that showed up last fall that I thought of as my "dinosaur" zinnia, because it was extra large (over 7 inches in diameter) and had some rather primitive characteristics. At the time, there was some thought that the freakishly long stigmas of the dinosaur zinnia meant that it would be sterile. They are several times as long as most zinnia stigmas. But C65 (my code ID for the original dinosaur specimen) has had several progeny, one of which is pictured here. The dinosaur zinnias have extra long petals and extra long stigmas. Their flowers are rather loose and not very double, but I kind of like them. I am continuing to cross pollinate them and save seeds from them.

ZM