Hi Fran,

The bloom posted has been offered by Livingston Seed Co. as simply blue picotee...the color closely resembles the lighter Fuji no Sora,but without the distinct white rays or spokes...a Sora NOT Fuji...(!?)...

I don't recall what the japanese call this one...and I'd have to 'scour' the files at Kyushu to find it...

The ones I grew a few years ago had a scent like 'old ladies' perfumed power...if you put your nose up to the flower early in the day...

TTY,...

Ron

Hi Ron,
thanks for the info that you have on this one.

Leave it to me to end up with another blooming MG that we can't really identify.
I had a bunch of those last year that where beautiful and, alas, no seeds from them to grow this year.

My first thought yesterday morning was a "reject" Fuji no Sora" as the color was so similar.
I checked my photobucket album with my MG pics from last year and the first thing I noticed where the leaves where different, This one has solid green leaves and they are much smaller than the Fuji no Sora that I had last year.

I will have to check the next bloom to see if the scent is there that you had with yours.

If you ever find out what the japanese name is for this one, I'd appreciate you letting me know.

Whatever it is, it is a very stunning color and size bloom and I do hope that between now and the fall I will have at least a few seeds from it for next year.

Since the Japanese MG produce so few seeds, I wonder what you think of this idea to attempt to pollinate some of the flowers and possibly increase the number of seeds.

A friend and I thought about buying at least 50 really cheap kids paint brushes. labeling each paint brush with the name of the MG that we are growing and store each one in it's own ziploc baggie.
then as we have at least 2 blooms at a time on a vine, very carefully moving pollen from one flower to another on the same vine to try a force some pollination to potentially increase the number of pods. By doing that hopefully increase the number of seeds as well.
We would only do this with a few of the flowers and let nature take it's course with the rest.

We would also be extremely careful that we used the correct labeled paint brush and store it in it's correct ziploc baggie as well.

do you think it has a chance of increasing the seed yield or do you think it is just a waste of time?

Thanks for the help and your thoughts on the attempts to pollinate and increase the seed yield.

Fran

Ron,

found this link today and the flower's look similar to the one i posted here. Interesting that bloom came from a packet of seeds that where supposed to be double blue picotee as well.

on the other hand this link says that the flower was lavender and mine is a real light blue that does turn to a pronounced lavender in the afternoon.
Also one pic on this link shows solid green leaves like mine and the other pic from the same person shows a different spotted green leaf.

The poster makes no mention of the bloom being scented and i had another bloom from the MG today and put my nose right into the flower and found no scent, but it was cloudy and was beginning to spit more rain.

Fran

here's the link

http://davesgarden.com/guides/pf/go/153687/

a pic of today's bloom on the same vine

{{gwi:424827}}

Hi Fran,

There is definite confusion generated by some companies referring to the kikyo / bell shaped flowers by calling them picotee and this results in people mistaking the color for a shape...there are single and double kikyo,but I am of the opinion that a kikyo should be referred to as a kikyo,either single or double and this would help to eliminate cascading confusion regarding descriptions...

There are 2 different types of lavender...blue-lavender and pink-lavender...

Regarding any scent from MG's...most people do not check,so the absence of any mention of a scent is not a definitive indication that the flower is lacking a scent...

A scented flower is one in which it is usually necessary to place your nose close to the flower in order to detect the aroma...in contrast to a flower which is fragrant where the aroma is detectable from several feet or more from the flower...

I am aware of the flower posted to the PlantFiles that you mentioned here
http://davesgarden.com/guides/pf/go/153687/
and although I was consulted and I was not in favor of it being entered as a new cultivar into the PlantFiles as I thought it would generate confusion....it was obviously entered into the database despite my perspective against the entry...

Here is another bloom
http://davesgarden.com/guides/pf/showimage/77108/
which was offered by an ebay merchant and entered in 'haste'...and you know what haste makes...(!)...Typical Youjiro always have white rays and any bloom that is completely lacking distinct white rays is atypical and any very atypical blooms should not be entered or entered with an obvious notation addressing the atypical coloration...these very atypical entries are examples of 'messes' that are resultantly difficult to get cleaned up...

I thought it would be better to present the atypical blooms in threads and discuss them,rather than just go ahead and enter them as new cultivars...but not everyone is interested to work as a cohesive community...and random entering of sports in the long run winds up creating division...through perpetuating mislabeling and fostering duplicative confusion...thinking about how any entry is going to affect the Larger Community is better than being hasty and entering photos into a reference database which many people rely upon for accurate information...

I think the MG pollination topic should be in a thread devoted to MG pollination...perhaps entitled "How to hand pollinate Morning Glories"...

TTY,...

Ron

I like that bloom. The soft blue color is lovely. I have a question about the double blue picotee. Is it common for a single plant to produce both single and double blooms?
Karyn

Thanks Karyn, I really like it too. hopefully I will be able to get seeds from it for next year and see if it stays stable and blooms the same next year.

As for the double blue picotee blooming both single and double flowers on the same vine. Yes it is common. It's also common to have very little of the double part of the flower too.

a couple of pics of mine last year and a link for quite a few pics that show the various blooms of the double blue picotee

small amount of the double in this one I had last year

you can see more of the double in this shot i took

another pic of 2 that I had with more variation of the double

Here is a link that might be useful: double blue picotee pics

Ron, thanks for the info. I agree there is so much confusion with MG.

I do hope that I will have seeds for this one, though, even if it's just a couple of them. I would like to see if this stays stable with it's blooms next year or ends up being something different again.

So far 4 blooms on the vine have been identical. Will be interesting to see if there are any changes as the days get shorter and cooler towards the end of August into early Sept.

And I will start a new thread on pollination, excellent idea.

Thanks again

Fran