Let the Bees Do It....................

I have had some large flowered, and largely ignored, Euphorbia millii for years and finally started to plant some seeds that developed. My own attempts at pollinating failed, but after watching for a while I found that hornets (that I used to kill) were pollinating them. So now I have arranged a grouping of different stock plants for the bees to work while I drink my coffee. My brilliant stratedgy is to only plant seeds from certain mother plants (with top secret traits) that are placed throughout the mix.

Some of the seeds from earlier collections have germinated and are flowering below. Several hybrids are larger than these but have not flowered so they will be dumped. The best hybrids will be placed in my euphorbia bordello for future seed production. I prefer to call this "smart work" rather than "lazy breeding". At my age the is no other choice.

In Thailand this is how one breeder does it (he used bees too). Americans come and pay him big money for hybrids. So far, there appears to be good diversity in flower color and size. Even more important is how the flowers are held on the plant which can make a drammatic difference in appearance. My theory is "if you want good plants for Florida - breed and select them in Florida". We shall see what happens. I am going for more coffee now.