Mo Painted Desert x Ctsm Melana Davison Fox

[isurus79]

Originally Posted by camille1585

I'm a bit surprised that the cross would give such 'black' blooms. I recently bought a SVO cross with Melana Melana Davison as a parent, and nearly bought a Painted Desert cross, and neither of those has such dark flowers, they are more of a dark wine red.

Even on the SVO website Fred writes for this cross "Flower colors will range from deep red to spotted red/burgundy". I know that seed grown plants can show a lot of variation (the photos the OP posted do show that black is possible), but still I wonder.

The "black" coloration is actually deep, deep red so it makes sense that this color is possible for the cross. If you take these flowers and hold them up to the sun, you'll notice they look dark red.

[Luckyelfie]

They told me I had about a 50/50 chance of getting flowers like they showed. At the time I'm not really sure I understood what that meant. I really loved the color of the ones I saw, but I'm going to be happy with whatever blooms, just because I got it to bloom!

[Roberta]

The photo looks a lot like Fdk. After Dark 'Black Pearl', which is Mo. Panted Desert (which ranges from dark red to almost black) with Ctsm. Donna Wise, many of which are very dark. Some After Dark cultivars are nearly black like this one, others have patterns.. many, many awards on a lot of them). This cross shares one of the parents, Mo Painted Desert. The other, Ctsm. Melana Davison, has a wide range of color forms. So what comes out depends on which exact Panted Desert and which exact Melana Davison were used, as well as the exact distribution of genetics - which may vary widely among the various siblings. So it will be a surprise, since there is a lot of potential variation in each parent, the result will be even more complex. But with outstanding parents, I would expect a very pleasant surprise. (Fred makes his hybrids with definite ideas in mind, parents are not randomly selected) Probably also fragrant since most of these are.

[Optimist]

Amazing story!

[My Green Pets]

Hi there, I just want to weigh in on this thread, I also have this cross and will post photos whenever it blooms (hopefully in the next couple months).

Roberta, that's a cool story how Fred named that cross after you! Pretty sweet!