Hi lovemyhouse,
I'm glad you like my tubular petaled zinnias. I grow a lot of different kinds of zinnias, but working with the tubular petaled zinnias began a new phase in my zinnia breeding. The tubular petals are a kind of enigma, because their stigmas (the part of a zinnia that accepts pollen to fertilize its egg cell) are enclosed in an inaccessible tube, and it is a wonder how they can produce many seeds that way.
I was doing some pollination on this next tubular petaled zinnia just yesterday.
It has a kind of "frosted" look due to the lighter color on the petal ends. When I need to make the tubular petaled stigmas accessible, I use an X-Acto knife with a small blade. It's a bit tedious, but it leads to some interesting results in the zinnia patch.
ZM
