06/04/2026
I have ordered some sweet pea seeds from Dr. Keith Hammett, if you don’t know who he is, but you love flowers, you likely have enjoyed something he has hybridized or his decades of innovative and influential flower breeding has had something to do with its creation…
In my packet of ‘Shell Pink’ I had found what I thought was rough seed and emailed him in hopes to identify it. Getting his seeds into the USA is next to impossible now and I was hoping maybe I was lucky and had an extra variety slip in by mistake.
Dr Hammett’s response was as follows…
“‘Shell Pink’ is a Lathyrus x hammettii hybrid. That is a cross between L. odoratus and L. belinensis.
It continues to throw the red variant at low levels, so is not jumped seed.”
So I don’t have a rouge seed but a potential new variant and if I can stabilize it, I’ll have a new ‘hammettii hybrid’ I’ll be able to bring to market someday… 🤞
It starts out a bright scarlet and then starts to color shift and pop its purple veins as it ages.
Last videos and two pics help show age and color progression.
