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Friday, May 22, 2009

Random plant event: Susan fights back

Noticed one of the black-eyed susan vines (Thunbergia alata) at work doing something interesting the other day. Normally, the flowers are a bright yellow-orange, with a dark brown, almost black, center. This one lacked the brown center.

I tried to get a picture of the two of them side-by-side, for comparison purposes, but unfortunately, none of those pictures turned out very well: the normal flower's dark center wound up just looking like a shadow. So here's what the flower usually looks like:


And here's the weirdo:


I don't like the light-centered flower nearly as well as I do the dark-centered one. Not sure why. It's just somehow not as interesting.
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3 comments:

  1. The Pale GardenerMay 22, 2009 at 7:11 AM

    That does look quite strange! It looks like someone took the center right out of it! Is this a normal variety? Or is it a defect?

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  2. IvynettleMay 22, 2009 at 2:32 PM

    I've seen seeds of a variety like that. Didn't like them either. I mean, the whole point of a black-eyed susan is that it's "black-eyed", right? Without that, it looks... I don't know... naked.

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  3. mr_subjunctiveMay 22, 2009 at 3:30 PM

    It wasn't supposed to be like that -- I would have sworn that they were supposed to be a mix of white, yellow, and orange, with dark centers. So far, though, all the flowers I've seen have been orange, and then the one doesn't have the dark center. So I don't know what's going on.

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