Hi Taqiyyah,
"... the first one was actually kind of scary--like something I would back slowly away from in my garden."
I had a similar reaction to the appearance of my original "star-tipped" mutant. It looked kind of ugly, and those brown tips on the star tips were troublesome, because I feared that they would show up in the hybrids. And they did show up in some of the hybrids with my tubulars, but in many they did not, and just contributed the star points to the ends of the petal tubes, like in this picture. (You can click on the pictures in this forum to see larger versions, and hit the F11 key for a less cluttered view.)
I have been growing a few zinnias indoors, in order to produce some advanced hybrid seeds to plant out in the garden after the weather warms up this Spring. That star-tipped mutant has contributed some interesting variations in my zinnias. I have been crossing them with some of my "toothy" zinnias, like this specimen.
I think there are some interesting possible interactions between the star-tipped genes and the toothy genes, and I hope to be seeing some new results this year.
Incidentally, you are invited to join in and comment on zinnias, both here and elsewhere.
ZM
