As soon as the pollen-parent flower is completely open, remove one of its stamens with scissors or tweezers. Remove the bag from the seed parent and gently brush the anther across the stigma. Replace the bag that was removed from the seed-parent flower. Chrysanthemums Chrysanthemums are composite flowers. If they are not available or crossing, you can use any other composite flower, such as zinnias r asters.
Composite flowers are more difficult to cross than cornlete or incomplete flowers.
If you are crossing plants for the first ime, it would probably be best if you gained experience by first crossg a simpler flower, such as squash, iris, or lily, before trying to cross composite flowers. Mums, zinnias, and astcrs corn over a relatively long period, so there will be no difficulty in aving pollen and seed parents ready at the same time. Immediately after the seed-parent flowers open and before the ollen is mature, remove the disc florets with tweezers. As shown in Fig. 3, the disc florets are in the center of the flower.