Nothing definitive can be said about the parentage of RAM. A close study of Oscie's garden notebooks and his price lists shows a portrait of uncertainty and doubt about what seemed a sure-fire identification. The initial record of seedling #4675 is LAHAINA X TET. SILOAM HAROLD FLICKINGER. This ID was based on a map of the seedling bed. But as he studied the flower, he doubted his identification. His "garden intelligence" told him the seedling he would name RAM was more likely a child of FRED HAM, which he was using at the time those seeds were produced. He knew there were opportunities for mistakes in moving germinated seedlings from the cold frame out into the garden beds, but once seedlings were in the beds, he made a map of the rows. (Crosses were not planted in any order in the cold frame, and packets of the same cross were not consolidated into one place in the cold frame or the seedling bed.) He realized that his flimsy plastic cross markers could be removed by squirrels or deteriorated by UV rays. So he trusted his instincts over the shaky reliability of plastic markers in the ground.

In the year he hybridized RAM, he used FRED HAM with three pollen parents, one of which was "unknown." He surmised that the unknown pollen was his seedling #3240 from CALEDONIA X TET. CARONDELET. Seedling 3240 was exceptional in that he kept it in the garden for a longer time than usual and hardly used it as a parent. He announced its introduction in the year 2000 under the name NOTHING VENTURED, but then never registered it and may not have released any plants.

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Somewhat rusty during the great infestation of 2021

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