Buying Seeds: Pros and Cons

    I've recently been doing research as to the viability of seeds purchased from online dealers whether from e-bay or web-sites, and unfortunately as I suspected in the beginning of keeping adeniums, the vast majority (I would guesstimate 95%) of them are either knowingly selling seeds that are being falsely represented by the picture of said auction or site, or they are unknowingly selling the pictured flowers seeds but not being completely honest as to what the resulting offspring of the plant will look like. Since the chances of getting flowers to bud in seedlings in the first or even the second year, it could plausibly be 3 years or so before one would find out that the seeds they purchased didn't grow accurately colored flowers as the one that was pictured when purchased.

It seems that the only way to guarantee that you get the plant pictured, is to buy the plant or get a grafted cutting from the plant, and that is only if you purchased it from a reputable dealer.

It turns out that Adeniums very seldom produce seeds through natural pollination, in fact, most breeders hand pollinate their desert roses in an attempt to get those unique color hybrids. For the most part though, it's a virtual crap shoot when this is done because one seed out of the entire seedpod might produce a new color or new variant of a color. It is this plant that will be grown and pampered and the remaining seeds are typically used as root stock for cuttings from the unique plant to be grafted to.

There are good reasons though to purchasing seeds online. that being Experience. I've purchased 120 seeds through e-bay for less than $20 shipped from Thailand, including all the necessary customs forms for the importation of seeds. Of the 120 seeds 90% have germinated. I still purchase by the color that the seller claims them to be, knowing full well the chances are slim that it would be accurate, I may get lucky though. The experience I've gained through learning how to properly germinate these fairly inexpensive seeds has been invaluable. I've learned through my own trial and error and I'm not out to much $$$ when I don't succeed. Once I get growing them from seeds to be more successful I intend on learning how to cross pollinate them so I can harvest my own seeds.

"Outside of a dog, a book is man's best friend. Inside of a dog it's too dark to read."
— Groucho Marx (The Essential Groucho)