First Flower

And then, on July 12th, the first, glorious, flower appeared, as shown on the right !

The color of this bloom totally surprised and delighted me, since I'd expected it to be white or yellow because the seed came from a Perry's Giant Sunburst, a hybrid with one white- and one yellow-flowered parent. In retrospect, however, I realize that the plant from which I got my seeds might well have been pollinated by another variety.

Whatever the explanation, I'm most happy with this deep pink color!

The two photos on the left show the flower on the second day, in all its glory.

Both days, it began opening around 8 o'clock in the morning, and started to close again around 1:00 p.m. This schedule persisted into the following days, but each day it has opened more and closed less than on the preceding day.

Pollinators flocked to the flower this morning, and seemed to become almost intoxicated as they burrowed down among the stamens, sometimes falling, apparently exhausted, onto a petal, only to resume frenetic activity a few moments later.

 

On the third day (below), it has lost a couple of petals, and the stigmas have turned brown. By the fourth day (right), the color is definitely fading, and the stamens are falling away.

But hey, I now have a total of four more buds showing!

And I've discovered where baby lotus flowers come from! They grow up alongside particularly thick-stemmed leaves, as shown on the right.

Compare the diameter of the leaf petiole next to which the bud is growing with the "average" leaf to the right of it. When this heavy-stemmed leaf first grew, it had an obvious sheath (black arrow) around its base, and the flower bud poked up between this sheath and the petiole.

Well, I have to recover from the excitement, so I probably won't be posting any more for a while, but will pick up the story again in the fall, as things start winding down.