Thank you very much for your kind comments, Myriam.
In the wild, it is not usual that two or more Tropaeolum species grow on the same spot, so they keep more or less their original colours. When you grow them in the garden, close to each other, bees do the miracle to obtain these special colours. These colours 'happened' when I still lived in the big city and all my Tropaeolums grew very close to each other on the same balcony. Some of the hybrid seeds I grew came from a Japanese gardener.
Unfortunately, none of these beauties are still alive
Now I live in the woods for almost 6 years and here they lived for me one or two more years. Had I known that, I would have kept the seeds I collected ...... Well, the draught and the rodents did the rest.
This year, the only hybrids I have come from T. brachyceras, in different shades of yellow and brownish. I have some unlabeled pots that were eaten by the rodents (they even dug the tubers!). This is an area where we have many wild gowing T. tricolorum and T. ciliatum (they bloom at different times), but where I took the pictures I posted for T. tricolorum, there is no plant at all this year.
It would be interesting to see if one can pollinate these tuber-Tropaeolums with the Ecuadorian annual species (T. majus & minus), but ours start blooming in late winter and the others much later.
I enojoy the pictures you took on your trip to Brazil!
