Hidden Valley Hibiscus Forum

Hi Charlie,

   Is this cv still around?  I'm interested in getting one at some point if they're still available.  Also, do you happen to have photos of its changing colors?

Thanks!
Jordan

I am also interested in this CV , I put my self on the waiting list.

Oh yes, Moonstruck is still around and very much in demand. It has an excellent bush and is a very good bloomer. I've seen flowers from 7" to 11" wide on this cv. Good seed setter, too. Photos that show the range of color are on this page of the web site: http://www.hiddenvalleynaturearts.com/acatalog/moonstruckinfo.html

The faded flower is the big one held by Reyes, who used to work at HVH before we moved.

I'm not sure the availability of Moonstruck, as it sold out in January or February and may not be back yet. It's a waiting list one, sorry to say.

Charlie

Wow, that flower is bigger than his head! 

I've gone ahead and put myself on the waitinglist for this one. 

Moonstruck looks like a very cool cv, a rainbow christie self cross with those colors?  Its pretty amazing that the flowers are so large.  It seems as though there are three self cross cvs that seem to have larger than average flowers.  Moonstruck, Strawberry Cream, and White Lightning.  I wonder if this "giantism" happens more often in self cross offspring. 

That's a good point. I've not found an extra large cv that reliably produced offspring that are extra large. Large, yes, but not flowers 9 inch or greater. As you noted, 3 of the largest flowered varieties I have came from self crosses. I'm not sure what, if anything, to make of that. Deserves some more experimenting in any case.

I've a large number of seeds this year that came from Moonstruck and am working on getting more from Strawberry Cream. Growing plants for sale is at odds with hybridizing due to the need to cut as much wood as possible to make more plants. That means fewer flowers to hybridize with on new varieties such as Strawberry Cream. I would prefer it if using the extra large cvs as parents was as effective as self crossing at getting more extra large flowers, and the results of the current seeds will give at least a partial answer to that. And yes, I did get a pod or two that is Moonstruck x Strawberry Cream. Here's hoping!

Charlie

That could be a very cool cross, a flower as big as Giganormous, but with good form and interesting colors would be pretty awesome.

I just won a Moonstruck on Ebay!!   ;D

gratz!  I saw that auction, I couldnt handle the 17 dollar shipping fee :P  Im happy you won, I know you were wanting that one for a while!

-Chris

Haha yeah I was struck by the shipping fee too, but I had a balance in Paypal so I decided to live dangerously....

Moonstruck today:

I want to add that my Moonstruck has responded exceptionally well to pruning, and is producing TONS of new branches.

We have had a Moonstruck in the office for over a year that blooms a lot on its many branches. Here is a photo of it blooming yesterday in the office, where it was promptly pollinated with pollen from another large flower, Cranberry Muffin. Good flat form yesterday and great color and texture.

Charlie

Charlie,  What do you mean be a "self cross, special technique by Charles Black"?  Does that mean if 2 blooms open on the same bush you cross them, or do you pollinate a bloom with its own pollen?  You don't have to answer if it is a secret, I'd understand.

Hey Kristen,

I asked Charlie the same thing about his high voltage self crosses (white lightning, cindy's heart, strawberry cream, white satin) and he said that he actually used plant hormones to trick a high voltage plant into producing seeds without pollination.  I think he used this same technique on rainbow christie, but am not 100 percent sure. 

We did use this on Rainbow Christi and got Moonstruck this way. The problem with doing it is that the mother plant is set back and may never recover. I haven't done it since that year when High Voltage and Rainbow Christi were both used. The one use of this technique that might be worth exploring is with a variety that otherwise does not produce offspring.

Charlie

So there was no pollen transfer?  Cause, being too slick, I stuck pollen from a Saffron flower onto itself.  Got nothing...

On that note, why not just put pollen from the same plant back onto the pads?  Does the cross never take this way?

Yes, that means no pollen was transferred using the hormone trick. Self crosses where pollen of the same variety is used to pollinate that variety does work with hibiscus sometimes. All the original species plants of hibiscus reproduced this way which is one reason why they are species. The hybrids do not usually form seeds when self pollinated for reasons that are not clear to me. Chris, do you know?

Kerry did a successful self cross last year and sent me the seeds to grow. I forget what it was now - Gator Pride x Gator Pride perhaps. You can find it in her forum posts from last summer. In any case the seeds were planted and the successful ones are growing and should bloom sometime this summer.

Charlie

Hi Charlie

These hybrids are usually polyploids meaning they have an odd number of chromosomes.  An example would be crossing a species hibiscus that had 12 chromosomes with another that has 14.  The offspring then has 13.  This plant is healthy but when it comes to making gametes (eggs and pollen) the chromosomes don't form the right haploids (half the chromosome, sex gametes) to form viable offspring when self crossed.  They can still be crossed to other polyploids though :)  

Here is a wikipedia page about it and funny enough the example it gives is H. rosa-siensis  :)

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Polyploidy

So no blooms from those seedlings yet, huh.  Man the anticipation is driving me crazy!

Excellent explanation, Professor! Thanks. Expanding the discussion, if we have a hybrid that is a very good seed setter, and seems to make seeds with almost any other hybrid we use for pollen, what would that suggest? Does it have anything to do with chromosome numbers or is it more about the performance/capabilities of the reproductive organs? I suppose both factors would be involved. Little has been done to learn the chromosome numbers of the currently available hybrids so one cannot really use this approach to figuring out what can be crossed with what but it is still good to know the theoretical possibilities.

Charlie

Got it Charlie,  Good man you are.  Protecting your hibiscus friends.  I knew I liked you!

Hi Charlie I am not really sure to be honest.  I suspect that it would have something to do with both flower morphology and compatibility of the chromosome number.  Sometimes in polyploid plants that dont have a viable number of chromosomes can sometimes forgo one round of mitosis and therefore not separate their chromosomes, (making a polyploid of 13 double to 26)  This plant now has the chromosomes to line up during meiosis.  The now plant of 26 chromosomes, each has a pair to make a haploid of 13.  Whereas before when the total chromosome number was 13, it did not segregate properly during meiosis.  This plant is now viable instead of fertile. Just like a sport of a flower can come to be, a non seed setting variety can sometimes set seed over time.  That would explain that instance of Renaissance Blue setting seed, that this plant had some sort of mitotic defect that allowed it to become viable.

Its a bit hard to explain in a posting, but hopefully this doesn't all sound like gooble gunk :P     

No, I follow you Chris. Thanks. This is no doubt one of the reasons why hybridizers of other species like Day Lilies often talk about diploids, triploids, and tetraploids. By multiplying the chromosomes more possibilities for successful crosses are created. Right? I followed the Wiki links posted earlier and found the fascinating example of grass - but that's another topic for another day.

The only person I know who tried to deliberately cause mutations in hibiscus that could have resulted in diploids, etc was Dale Dubin, an MD with some lab experience. He used toxic colchicine to treat seeds in the hope that this would provide some interesting results. He says he didn't get anything worth pursuing and all his good hybrids came about the old fashioned way - hand pollination of varieties he liked.

Charlie

A couple opening moonstruck photos.  I will get some later on as it fades.  Take note that it is super hot mid 90's with a heat index of 100º.  And the humidity is horrendous. Also, it is an 8" bloom here.