Hybridizing Hippeastrums - Pink/White NOID x Red NOID

What do you get when you have a Pink White NOID mother and Red NOID father? I think ... ugly flowers?

Pink White NOID Mother

Red NOID Father

I had no idea who Pink White NOID Mother had crossed with in 2010 until last summer when late into the season a flower popped up, revealing that it was fathered by a Red NOID. It was unimpressive and the petals formed big gaps.

This late spring, seven flower stalks came up in the Pink White Mother/Red Father section of the amaryllis bed. I would like to take the opportunity to apologize for the horribly overgrown weedy appearance in the pictures. Mother Nature is laughing at me for putting a very big bed up against the fence where I can not access it from the other side to fend off the vines and weeds that are having a merry old time coming in. This bed is a loss and I'm going to be digging everything up and moving them elsewhere.

On with the pictures. And I apologize for the junk pictures as well. I was obsessing over taking pictures that I guess I didn't realize how many had turned out to be blurry or dark.

May 11, 2014 - PinkWhite/Red #1

May 11, 2014 - PinkWhite/Red #1

I have to admit that my reaction to the first flower opening was that it was ugly. I was disappointed. I was more impressed with the backs of the flowers. Why couldn't that design be on the petals?

May 12, 2014 - PinkWhite/Red #2

This seems to be a repeat from last year except this one has five petals. The other flowers on this stalk had the same 'defect' and I didn't focus on this one much.

May 15, 2014 - PinkWhite/Red #3

This one was pressed up against the fence. Lacked white. I really thought I went back to take pictures of the other flowers when it opened but it seems I totally overlooked this one.

May 16, 2014 - PinkWhite/Red #4

May 17, 2014 - PinkWhite/Red #4

#4 caught my attention. I really liked that a good amount of white was showing through in the flowers of this one. I also liked the little red marks in the throat as well.

May 20, 2014 - PinkWhite/Red #5

May 20, 2014 - PinkWhite/Red #5

The fifth was pretty much red. And then when one of the flowers opened later on, it revealed another 'gap' in the petal arrangement. Seems to 'run in the family'.

May 23, 2014 - PinkWhite/Red #6

Another one with a bit of white in the picture.

May 26, 2014 - PinkWhite/Red #7

And the final one opens.

I won't be tossing these even though I'm unimpressed with a majority of them right now. PinkWhite NOID really hates setting pods and the fact that this is crossed, it's something different. Maybe next year I might get something more interesting from the other bulbs there.

I tried cross-pollinating PW/R#1, using Charisma selfed pollen on two flowers, and Intokazi pollen on two flowers. Charisma selfed failed. The two pods fathered by Intokazi are still there but not doing anything.

I tried PW pollen on PW/R#4. Then I took pollen from PW/R#4 and put it on PW. Ultimately my thought was that I wondered what would happen if PW/R#4 was pollinated by its mother, would the offspring bring forth more white? As for putting PW/R#4 pollen on PW, I just did that out of curiosity, to return the favor while going out there to cross flowers.

What I've noticed when I pollinated the PW/R flowers was that it shares the same 'personality trait' as the PW. It never seems to detect pollination. The flowers will stay open for days and act as if I didn't do a thing to it. And usually, when time tells, aborts all seed pods.