Even though my main interests in plants lie with food crops and Old Roses, I will always have a nostalgic soft spot in my heart for the old fashioned, tough, reliable, truly perennial pentas that were magnets for hummers and butterflies before well meaning breeders ruined them over the last 20-30 years or so. I feel beyond blessed to suddenly have three types of the red...in the lower left is the small-flowered, rangy growing species that was common in Tampa gardens until the early 80s...to its right is one I just bought at Bloom Garden Shop that is also tall and rangy BUT has larger flower clusters that I suspect is a very early hybrid...behind both is the much larger flowered BUSHY one that Mary Jo got as unrooted cuttings in 1992 that is growing like CRAZY out front with all the stiff-stemmed vigor of the early ones vs. the weak-stemmed, wimpy, short lived modern pentas that are little better than annuals. I rarely get hummers here so will be propagating all three BIG time to pepper my yard with, front and back plus share with friends. It is so cool to see three stages of development in one vase!