I think I may have been walking by one of these in my town. The large broad flowers with pink blush are appealing.
Nice photo. This seems to have become the most popular of the Stellar series developed at Rutgers. I've read that Orton's original goal was to produce superior pink bracted cultivars. Interesting that this is the only one with much pink coloration. One of the parents is C. florida 'Sweetwater Red'.
Likewise, I've seen it said most of the original Eddie hybrid seedlings were supposed to have been pink, the one that became 'White Wonder' the only one to survive a flooding of the field and be selected and introduced. Sigh, what might have been...actually 'White Wonder' is one of the best varieties anyway.
And the jury is still out on these Rutgers hybrids. For me, Celestial(R) aka C. xrutgersensis 'Rutdan' has been the best performer to date. We'll see what happens with the newest releases, hybrids of C. nuttallii & C. kousa.
