Acknowledgments and Notes

The American Hibiscus Society is grateful to Mrs. Helen Sanders for her foresight in keeping every issue of The Seed Pod, and for her generosity in allowing us to borrow them for this project.  Thanks also to Dr. Fern Betancourt for shipping them from Mrs. Sanders’ home in Fort Myers, Florida, to me in Houston, Texas.  Thank you, Barbara Hagan-Smith, AHS Archivist, for your help with indexing this work.

Many of the older issues were very fragile, and handling them for scanning was precarious.  Mrs. Sanders was a member of the original Nomenclature Committee, and she put her issues to good use in double checking hibiscus names against the Nomenclature Lists.  We think the check marks, underlining, and margin notes add character to the finished product.

The Index has been divided into sub-groups, which we think will aid the user in locating specific material.  Breaking out certain sub-headings keeps the Index of Articles from being cluttered with such things as show results, bylaws amendments, photograph identification, etc.

The Presidents’ Messages contain a wealth of historical data, particularly the first 40 years.

The Best of Show Winners is a list begun by Ralph Dubler, and continued by Joe Ludick, of blooms that have won Best of Show Single, Best of Show Double and Best of Show Miniature at least three times.  The number to the right of each bloom’s name is the number of times it has won Best of Show.

Seedling Winners is a list of Best of Show Seedlings by year.  These are blooms that were eligible to be evaluated by the Seedling Evaluation Committee as possible Hibiscus of the Year Contenders.  Parentage, a brief description of the bloom and availability are also included.

 Texas Bloomers is an index of the pictures of blooms described in my Texas Bloomers column.

It should be noted that some of these blooms are no longer available and are presented for your viewing pleasure.

Patricia Burns Merritt,

AHS National Secretary