Hibiscus: Hibiscus martianus, 1 by Michael_Ronayne

Michael_Ronayne wrote:
Sandi,

On August 1 the Hibiscus martianus produced four flowers (see attached), followed by one more flower two days later. I am not even photographing anything with less than three flowers any longer but I continue to hand pollinate. Obviously your Texas Hibiscus are happy in New Jersey; if they had to pay our taxes their view of the Garden State might be a bit different.

In the upper left cornet of the attached photograph you can see part of one of the Hibiscus calyphyllus you smuggled relocated out of Texas on my behalf, which is now several time larger than the Hibiscus martianus. Now I have a bit of sad news for you. The two Hibiscus calyphyllus with buds didn’t flower because they were pregnant with seed pods, which looked like buds. This is the same phenomena I observed in Hibiscus martianus. The first seed pod opened before I realized what was going on and the seeds were lost. I save the seeds from the second pod. I split the seeds with a friend out west and successfully germinated three plants which are growing vigorously and are approaching the size of the original the plants you sent me. Flower buds are developing on the original plants and I should have flowers by the later part of August. I have pollen sources lined up for the crosses we discussed. I will post more on this once the flowers open.

Mike