Then there is the blizzard pattern you see in the flower that is located just under the subject flower photo above.

Here is that flower form which is quite nice in my opinion, deep intense bands of blue on white.

And the third flower form which is mostly pale pale blue with a ring encircling the tube. I tagged this flower and hope it will make seeds. It would be way cool to see an entire plant with these circle-tube flowers.

This flower had a tube flag - All are big flowers.

Joseph, is Beach of the Milky Way otherwise known as Hamaginga to the Japanese?

If I can figure out how to post an image here, I have a pic to share with two blooms side by side on the same vine that look just like your 2nd and 3rd blooms. I grew this vine out in 2007 from seeds from Emma labeled Shibori, and I never saw any blooms that looked like your 1st one.

I wonder if we'll ever figure out what conditions/enzymes/circumstances lead to such a variety of blooms on one plant?

By the way, I do remember that your Bloom #2 showed up first on my vine, and it wasn't until late in the season that your Bloom #3 showed up on my vine. Could you tell me when your Bloom #1 showed up, in relation to when the other two showed up?

So, ruminating out loud, maybe it could be a developmental thing as to when a certain flower pattern appears, according to what stage of growth the vine is in, between germination and natural death after going to seed - ??

wonder what else?

Doncha love flowers with mystery?

Karen/Bluespiral

ps - My mg pic is on my hard drive - is there a way to post an image from your hard drive on GW?

ps - Sorry for all these questions, but when a single vine produces such a variety of patterns, how on earth do we establish identity for that vine? I strongly suspect there are probably other morning glories that also produce a wide disparity of patterns/shapes/colors just on one vine. ???

ppps - apologies to whoever's post this might cross - not ignoring you - just windy

Hi Joseph,

Oh, lovely, blue...
I would love to trade for more of your Japanese MG.
I had sown all the ones you sent me a few years ago but they didn't do too well. Didn't get any seeds.

So far no hurricane but it's only Sept. We did have a tornado touch down near Kohl's then went toward Wal-Mart and where I work at the mall. It overturned cars in the parking lot at Wal-M and part of the roof at Kohl's collapsed. The skylight in the mall flew off and several stores in the mall were damaged.
Never have we had a tornado here but luckily it was a "small" tornado. I would hate to see a big one!

Betsy, SE Texas

Karen unfortunately her at GW your photos have to be on an online web site to post them. Photobucket is an easy one to use, they give you the link to put them right in your post. They have a way now that you can do a batch download of your pics instead of one at a time. There is also a code for the image you can use too. It won't show up here but if you want it I can email it to you.

Beautiful flower Joseph!!

I use Photobucket and also flickr. These last images came from my flickr account.

Karen, I don't know the answers to your questions. One of the packet picture has the shibori flower.

I got this form of flower initially, based on dates when I took the photographs.

This flower was also appearing during the same timeframe.

It wasn't until later in the summer when I started seeing the third form on the vine.

Piksi, here's hoping you have a mild tornado season - would you believe we have them here in Maryland too? They're probably milder here than where you are, but I remember one year traveling down to visit family in Virginia, and we passed many a partial structure with those gigantic blue tarps over sections still standing after a major storm.

Joseph and Ronnie, you did answer my questions - I appreciate it. Regarding the question about setting parameters of color and pattern for identification in cases like Galaxy on the Beach and a similar ongoing discussion elsewhere about George Strait, that is definitely one for the back burner where I keep open questions. Thanks for humoring me.

Looks like some great posts here, hopefully I'll be able to keep up in a while.

Karen