Plumeria cv ‘Jeannie Moragne’

P. ‘Jeannie Moragne’ is one of the famous Moragne hybrids produced by the late Mr. William Moragne, Sr. of Lihue, Kauai, Hawaii during the 1950s. After nearly twenty years of experiments, Mr. Moragne performed the first documented cross pollination of Plumeria rubra varieties. The results are some of the most spectacular plumeria cultivars known. He named this cultivar for his son’s wife Jeannie.

‘Jeannie Moragne’ is characterized by its awesome flowers, and its rapid, almost uncontrollable, growth.

There has been much confusion among plumeria enthusiasts with respect to the Jean Moragne cultivar name. It is sometimes used to market ‘Jeannie Moragne’. Mr. Moragne named his favorite flower for his wife Jean. His son, William Moragne, Jr., coincidentally married another Jean, known by the family as Jeannie. The original cv ‘Jean Moragne’ became ‘Jean Moragne, Sr.’ and the flower named for Jeannie became ‘Jean Moragne, Jr.’. Since ‘Jean Moragne’ was already a registered cultivar name and because the abbreviations ‘Sr.’ and ‘Jr.’ were not part of a real persons name, they could not be used in a registered cultivar name. The Moragne family has solved this problem by retaining ‘Jean Moragne’ instead of ‘Jean Moragne, Sr.’ and by selecting ‘Jeannie Moragne’ instead of ‘Jean Moragne, Jr.’ for the plant described here. Now its up to the growers to get their price lists correct!

Petal Shading

Top:A Yellow 12B center (bottom of petal) fades to white about two thirds of the way to the tip. A grainy overlay of Red-Purple 60D somewhat light on the left becomes a dense stripe on the right forming apparent shades of red and orange. The intensity of the red-purple increases with an increase of temperature during the flowering period.
Bottom:A Red-Purple 60D stripe on the left, then a paler narrow band of the same cover the left side of the petal. Yellow 9A fades to white (bottom to top) on the right side and is overlaid by grainy Red-Purple 60D forming shades of pink and orange with white veins.