I may be wrong but this is what works for me in Australia. Pods normally only set when the temperatures are between 60 and 80 degrees Fahrenheit.

Success is much better on rainy or cloudy days. If the bloom is in the sun try to turn it back into the bush to shade it and mist it with a spray bottle When choosing a bloom to pollinate try to choose one on the shady side of the bush.

Try to plant your mothers where they get morning sun only - probably not best for blooms but definitely better for hybridizing. Plant a few deciduous trees where they will give dappled shade in summer. Do not prune branches hanging near the ground as is normal because they are your best bet for a take.

Try opening blooms by tearing or cutting the petals of blooms that will open the next day and pollinate them in the cool of dusk. Humidity is very important so consider setting up misters. If all else fails try making a thimble over your thumb from aluminum foil, add a little damp cotton wool and crimp it over the pads after you pollinate them. For me, pollen is best when the pollen sacks have just opened but if you want to make a particular cross and the mother will not open until the next day you can put the pollen in a lunch box with a little damp cotton and this works quite well. (Left photo: Alfred Westerman).

When looking for a mother the flower must have just opened unless it is humid weather. If the pollen looks old on the mother it is a waste of time unless it is one of the very few very fertile mothers. Some hybridizers pick the pollen donors at night put them in the fridge overnight and pollinate at 5 AM.

Because most hibiscus do not open that early this means opening the blooms that would have opened later in the day and pollinating them. Even if the mother is not ready the pollen will be there when she is. As one says, some hibiscus do not set seed so use them as fathers. Here are some that set seed for me:

oooOOOooo

Gregor Johann Mendel (1822-1884), an Austrian monk and botanist born in Heinzendorf (now Hyncice, near Krnov in what was once Czechoslovakia), is credited for framing the basic laws of heredity which involves the passing on of characteristics from parents to their offspring. It is a process that occurs among all living things.

Mendel's various experiments with breeding garden pea plants evolved into a science we know today as genetics. His hybridizing programs, which counted for thousands of plants, led him to conclude that plant traits are handed down by parents through elements or genes in the gametes. These inherited traits are passed on by chemical instructions imbedded in such genes. These are located on tiny threadlike structures called chromosomes within cells.

This monk from the monastery of St. Thomas in Brunn (now Brno) Austria, reasoned that each plant receives a pair of genes for each trait it displays - one gene from each of its parents. He further observed that if a plant inherits two different genes for a particular trait, one of these genes will be dominant while the other recessive and that the trait of the dominant gene will appear in the resulting new plant.

Mendel also arrived at another conclusion - that pairs of genes segregate (or separate) in a random manner (The Law of Segregation) at the instant when a plant's gametes are formed. What this suggests is that a parent contributes only one gene of each pair it has to its offspring. He also believed that a plant inherits each of its traits independently of other traits (The Law of Inde-pendent Assortment). Newer studies in genetic science have discovered some exceptions to Mendel's conclusions but his theories, in general, have been proven nevertheless.

Heredity, as a process, also explains why a human mother always has a human baby and why hibiscus plants always produces hibiscus plants. As a species, all human beings bear a basic resemblance to one another regardless of race largely because of their shared human heredity. Differences occur only in such features as the color of their skin; shape of face, nose and eyes; color and texture of hair; and, height. These variations of the same basic theme are the result of a hereditary process. Each individual inherits a recombination of traits which explains why even brothers and sisters differ in many ways. They each receive different characteristics from the same parents recombined on an individual-to-individual basis.

While almost all physical characteristics are determined to some degree by heredity many physical traits are also influenced by environment. For example, genes determine a person's skin color but skin also darkens when exposed at length to sunlight. In the same vein, heredity determines the general shape of a body - whether it will be short and stocky or tall and lean. But a person's eating habits also affects the shape of that body. Likewise, even if identical twins have exactly the same genes, they may differ in many ways because of differences in environment.

Interestingly enough, the breeding of hibiscus reflects much of what is observed in humans from a hereditary point of process. But as Geoff Harvey remarks in his "Hibiscus Hybridization Guide" that, while "modern know-ledge of the laws of heredity has made breeding much more efficient, still our hobby remains anything but an exact science. Hundreds of traits may be involved in a breeding experiment, thus the results are usually impossible to predict."

This new series of supplemental pages being introduced in Hibiscus Inter-national titled: "The Magic of Mendel", will begin by showcasing the genea-logy of selected hibiscus cultivars from grandparents on both sides down to the cultivar in question. Keeping a keen observer's eye in mind, you will see that the basic Laws of Mendel are evidently at work in all such individual crosses featured - some are predictable while others more subtle and even surprising. And while file size limitations per issue of H.I. are an ever present reality I hope our readers can both still enjoy and learn from these three initial displays starting with: California Dreamin', Georgia's Pearl and Heart-break Hotel. There ought to be some magic in that!