JungleShadows said:
Laszlo's plant is EXTREMELY cool. All of the previous variegated semps that I have heard about were unstable sectorial chimeras. This one looks to be a good periclinal chimera and should be stable. We have certainly seen similar sorts of chimeras in Aeonium and Semps are of course closely related, being a branch of the same tree, and of course we have all kinds of variegation in the sedums.
A chimera is a plant that has two genetically different sorts of tissue. In the case of variegated plants, white and green.
A sectorial chimera is when the variegation occurs as wedges of tissue or splashes. A periclinal chimera is one where the pattern is very regular, like an edge or center that is white. This would be Laszlo's plant. Periclinal chimeras have layers in the meristem that are of different genetic constitutions.
Kevin
JungleShadows said:Isn't it weird about the rollers? I remember Helen saying that there was not much interest in them and they rarely sold compared to the others. I had another one that I had named 'Emerald Fountain' that had tiny leaves and compact rosettes but Helen thought there was no interest and we decided not to introduce it! But of course that included the heuffs back then too. We only had three real cultivars. It took Bill Nixon and others to use 'Correvon' and others to show the potential there. Now the heuffs might be my favorite.
Kevin
valleylynn said:Kevin, is that the one named h. 'Henry Correvon'?
JungleShadows said:Lynn,
Yes. That's it. It was first called "Palaisii" (Which is what Bill Newhard had called it, possibly as a plant from Correvon's or Sanford's collection) and then became "Correvon's Form" or just "Correvon" and finally named for Henri. Bill Nixon said it was the source of yellow colors like 'Xanthoheuff' and I've been using a couple of his hybrids that involve it in my crosses. The progeny from Bill's heuffs are definitely the most variable of any batch of heuffs that I've raised. He thought 'Torrid Zone' was a cross of 'Henri Correvon' X 'Giuseppi Spiny' as they are growing next to each other. When I self-pollinated 'Torrid Zone' I obtained all sizes of rosettes and all shapes too, from tiny rosettes with sharply-pointed leaves (like in 'Giuseppi Spiny') to huge reds and purples with more the form of 'Henri Correvon' and every conceivable combination of rosette size, color and shape in between. Some of these were among the largest heuffs I've grown and certainly the most vigorous. Some made 8-10 offsets in a year from seed and bloomed. With many of the heuffs being SLOW, these are a nice change. Alas I have not obtained any yellows so far in my self-pollinations although I did make some crosses of the Nixon ones back to 'Henri Correvon' this year. It would certainly be nice to have some VIGOROUS yellows, wouldn't it??
Kevin
JungleShadows said:I don't know how Shirley Rempel got my Semp 'Jungle Fires' but IT'S DEFINITELY MINE!! It was from my first seed head of 'Jungle Shadows' and was the only red one in the batch. If anyone doesn't believe me I have Helen's catalog with MY NAME as the originator. As far as I know Shirley never really hybridized any of them.
It is wrong on the Czech list too.
I just saw my 'Minaret' on a German list as 'Minuet' by an unknown hybridizer! That was a plant I named in '69!!
Things get stuck in the literature and the errors keep getting repeated. Luckily I'm stil alive and CAN correct at least mine!
Kevin
JungleShadows said:Julia,
I don't think all nurseries are bad on things, they just take the names under which the plants they received were given and they ASSUME what they have is correct. I remember the anguish that Helen felt after Peter Mitchell ripped her nomenclature in her book. She had even prefaced a few descriptions with "as in the trade" knowing that the plants in commerce didn't match some of Praeger's descriptions for these plants. She was as careful as they come too. When the Dalton trials were completed it was Helen's plants that were the most correct of any nursery.
Am sure that someone in Europe transcribed 'Minaret' into 'Minuet' on a tag one day and a new semp was born. Amazing how mixed up things can get.
Maybe my sensitivity to these issues lies in having ~80 of my hostas stolen from me many years ago. These were later sold undrr the thief's names. Finally I got justice a year or so ago on some of them and I was given credit for creating them but of course no $$ for their introduction. The worst thing that can happen to a hybridizer is to lose his "children".
Kevin
JungleShadows said:Lynn,
I have stalks of seed from 'Borscht' X its darker sibling and crosses of two of the 'Forever Midnight' siblings that are 10" across with each other that should be really quite cool.
My most interesting seedlings from the heuffs have been from 'Torrid Zone' and 'Hot Lips'. Bill Nixon thought they were from 'Henri Correvon' X 'Guiseppi Spiny' and the seedlings certainly show that. I get all sizes between quite tiny ones that lie flat to the ground with spiny tips to the leaves to huge ones with very wide and gently tapered tips and ALL combos of these characteristics plus every shade of red, green and purple with all variations in the amount of color from just a touch to solid reds and purples. These genes are REALLY segregating! Think the clinic people will have a fun time sorting through my selections on these. I did another round of selfing of these two cultivars plus self pollinated the seedlings from them that had bloomed too.
Kevin
JungleShadows said:Ok I ran out between showers and got a couple shots of it and a couple other seedlings for you to see. I realized I had the other extreme in another seedling with needle-like leaves. Also wanted you to see the clump of 'Big Six-O' starting to get its winter coloring.
I'll be interested on seeing the spring color on "Hershey's Kiss". It has made 5 good rosettes and bloomed one year from seed so it's a good grower for a heuff seedling. You can definitely see the influence of 'Giuseppi Spiny' in the pointy tips but the leaf width at the base and the relatively sparse leaves are totally different.
'Big Six-O' is from 'Killer' X 'Jungle Shadows'. It is the biggest of this group and goes quite red in spring. The little offset is coloring but it's at a different angle than the others.
The pointed one is from 'Vesta' X self but almost the opposite in form from its parent. It was the ONE seedling from that group although I remade the cross this year and also self-pollinated the seedling. I hate making crosses with the heuffs as you have to rip off the petals but I can just cover the stalk and move pollen from one flower to a receptive stigma. Next year I will start crossing the extreme types as now I have a feeling for how these characters are inherited. I have learnt a lot from the selfing experiments and I may still self pollinate a few where i see inklings of color that could be brought out. There are some odd pastel shades when I get a blue or glaucous overlay to a pastel violet that I'd like to see another generation to see what colors sort of from that.
Enjoy!
Kevin
JungleShadows said:Greg,
When I wrote the book on beardless irises I wrote a "History of Hybridizing" where I talked about all the principal players for each group of iris and how they contributed to the advancement of the group. Luckily i have been around so long that I actually knew many of these people. To me this is interesting how the hybridizing has progressed, working on the shoulders of others. When I started we only had several hundred cultivars, many misnamed, and many not that interesting. That's why my hybridizing program was based upon relatively few cultivars but utilized those that were the "state of the art" back in '64. 'Silverine' and 'Cleveland Morgan' were very important and these two along with 'Lavender and Old Lace', 'Missouri Rose' and 'Denise's Cobweb' turned out to be the parents that produced the most consistently pretty seedlings. Later 'Minaret' and 'Jungle Shadows' showed themselves to be good parents. Of course you have all seen the wonderful things coming from combining 'Killer' and 'Jungle Shadows'. In fact, this was the first year I didn't use 'Jungle Shadows' itself but rather used the seedlings from it.
- Hen and Chicks (Sempervivum 'Silverine')
- Uploaded by tabby
- Hen and Chicks (Sempervivum 'Minaret')
- Uploaded by valleylynn
- Hen and Chicks (Sempervivum 'Killer')
- Uploaded by valleylynn
By the way, that was the real impetus for the clinic, that I was the last one alive that knew these things and i needed to spread the word to the next generation. You don't want the information to die with you, not that I anticipate that happening anytime soon.
Thank you Lynn for putting my "gospel" into its own category. You can decide what posts are "worthy" of putting there. YOU have my permission to edit out the "crazy"!
Kevin
JungleShadows said:Patty's picture of 'Silverine' is very accurate. When grown more lushly it will form more of a lotus-style rosette and you see more of the silver. The most extreme seedling from it I named 'Silver Song'. It is colored like 'Silverine' but the leaves are much wider and it has peach flush at times and is very lotus-formed. If it blooms this season I hope to use it with some other colors as I think that form is very attractive.
Kevin
JungleShadows said:I tried to cross reds and purples with ‘Plastic’ last year in order to get versions of 'Plastic' in those shades. The result? ONE seedling up. I'll try again this year and may use 'Plastic' pollen instead of setting seed on it. 'Weirdo' did about as well. From every flower crossed with 'Unicorn' I have one seedling up. I did expect the problems with 'Weirdo' as its flowers are very abnormal but the flowers on 'Plastic' LOOK normal. Could be my choice of parents too. Some combinations don't make much viable seed.
Anyway, I'm sure I would like a version of this plant in different colors and maybe twice as large too.
Kevin
JungleShadows said:Lynn,
If I get a real dark grey seedling from 'Plastic' I'll have to name it TEFLON! Oh that would cause Ed Skrocki to howl! I remember when I crossed his 'Olivette' with a red and got 'Stuffed Olive'. He howled over that too! Last year I self-pollinated a stalk of 'Stuffed Olive' to try and get some more olive tones a brighter red. The seedlings are definitely showing red centers already.
OK, Ed had named his 'Olivette' because it looked liked olives. Of course my thought was "it would look MORE like an olive with a PIMENTO stuffing it". So I made the cross with 'Malby's #2' and 'Stuffed Olive' was one of the seedlings that looked most like a stuffed olive. Ed SCREAMED WITH HYSTERIA when I sent him a piece. He thought it was a great joke to one-up his hybrid by "stuffing it" and wished he had thought of the name.
The 'Stuffed Olive' incident happened about 1974. It really stung Eddie! I was 20 then!
Kevin
JungleShadows said:There are a couple yellow ones showing up in a batch from a 'Jungle Shadows' X self seedling with a tint of yellow. Those might be a "Golden Anniversary".
I think Golden Jubilee is a better name although it does sound like something from the other side of the pond. Americans don't do jubilees like the English do!
OK now I have the names, just have to get the plants to behave. the big red one is from 'Killer' X 'Jungle Shadows' and is a blood red 8" rosette so that will probably be 'Big Six-O'. It looks like a bigger, darker, redder, nicer-formed version of 'Oh My', if that makes any sense. Toby took back a few rosettes to test at his place too but it is still under number, not a name yet. The yellow ones are small seedlings yet. I had one yellow that I marked in the 2013 group but it is going to be a slow grower. The yellow out of 'Jungle Shadows' X self has a lot of purple in it too but it's a good grower. The two gold seedlings are from self-pollinating that plant.
Kevin
JungleShadows said:Greg,
Semp seeds are TINY and tend to go right through many envelopes. I use glassine envelopes to store the seed (ungummed) and then put the envelope in a sealed coin envelope for further protection. Plan B is that you leave them in the paper bags and just crush them and plant them all in one fell swoop. Hold off until late February to actually plant as they might try to come up now and you'll lose many over the winter.
Kevin
JungleShadows said:I buy them from a local stamp dealer. I use the rather small ones, about 3" across. You want the UNGUMMED ones as the seeds will stick in the gummed ones. After putting the seed in them, I fold the envelope so that the seed can't escape and then put the folded envelope in a coin envelope. after taking all the trouble to make these crosses, I don't want to lose these seeds!
I store the cleaned seed in the crisper area of my fridge in a sealed plastic storage bag until planting in spring.
Kevin
valleylynn said:
Seed from S. 'Dynamo', containing a fair amount of debris.
- Hen and Chicks (Sempervivum 'Dynamo')
- Uploaded by valleylynn
gg5 said:@Jungleshadows, @Springcolor @Patty @Valleylynn or anyone else who has gotten seeds from their semps
Kevin your reply brings up a question - do all the bloom stalks have seed???
If I didn't hand pollinate, am I sure the bees are pollinating them?
I didn't actually check for seeds when I cut the stalks - and I've just kept them in a paper bag without disturbing them.
I was assuming since the bloom dried and the stalks seemed full that they had seed on them...thanks for any comments on this!
I'm planning on giving the seeds to MR - so I hope there is seed and not just chaff
JungleShadows said:Greg,
Most stalks will have some seed. The heuffs and things that are totally or predominantly tectorum, marmoreum, montanum or arachnoideum will have LOTS of seed. The hybrids that are part arachnoideum X a non-cobweb will have much less seed in general, sometimes none at all. My 'Greenwich Time' which is a montanum x calcareum cross has almost no seed. Hybrids from tetraploid strains X diploid ones tend to be nearly sterile, such as 'Greenwich Time'.
Hope that helps.
There are a few others like 'Aymon Correvon' (alias 'Purdy's 90-1' and 'Engle's 13-2') that I have never obtained seedlings but I do get things that look like viable seeds. I'm trying again this year with 'Aymon Correvon' as I really like that combination of grey and velvet and would like to work with that combo in my seedlings too. Just think of something like 'Polly bishop' in velvet.
Kevin
JungleShadows said:
I've found that the chaff doesn't make any difference in terms of germinating the seed. If you put the whole seed stalk into a paper bag and keep it dry and cool most of the seed will come out and collect at the bottom of the bag. After I collect that very clean seed I generally put the stalk back in the bag and give the stalk a little squeeze. That releases some of the seeds that are still entrapped in the capsules. This releases the seed but also creates much more debris. However, if you dump that debris/ seed mix out on a sheet of white paper you can sort of manually separate the larger pieces of debris from the seeds.
In November I find that all the seed is ready to come out of the capsules and so I generally wait until then to do a cleaning and I store the seed in the CRISPER portion of my refrigerator in glassine envelopes. I plant the seed in late February or early March.
The glassine envelopes don't absorb much water so that's why they are so useful in keeping the semp seed dry. You might check Office Depot or a stamp dealer as the stamps are almost always put in them. They keep the stamps dry and clean.
You'll find the plastic ones will STICK TO YOUR SEED and it's tough to get them out of the envelope. Glassine is a treated paper and the seed seems to repel off from it so it facilitates planting. If you can't find glassine envelopes, you can use coin envelopes although you want to fold them and keep the seed towards the bottom as the seeds seem to want to come the top of the envelope. I sometimes pack the glassine envelopes in coin envelopes, because the glassine envelopes are rather flimsy.
I have been using the ungummed ones
I keep forgetting that I've done this for 50 years and I think everyone knows these things! I had a very good teacher in Polly. Polly had one bedroom that she kept for the purpose of seed collecting and storage. Mine are sharing space with my musical instruments. Too many hobbies!
If you're like me you have already "mentally germinated and grown" those seedlings from your crosses. Even when I'm making the crosses I sort of see in my head what the seedlings will be. However, the 'Killer' seedlings have certainly been surprises. It has given brilliant colors and color that lasts all season in most cases. Imagine 'Oddity' X 'Killer'!!
Kevin
JungleShadows said:I've put in two 15' x 6' raised beds for the seedling crop and I'm glad they're in now so that the soil can settle, With all this rain, there should be no problem in settling the soil!
During the rainy days I'm going to start cleaning out the seed. My garage looks fairly ridiculous right now as there are bags of seed heads of not only Semps (140 and counting!!) but also Helenium, sedums and asters all drying and waiting to be cleaned and stored. (The irises and daylily seeds are already planted and the daylily crop is already germinating!) I'll get all the pot labels ready and record all the successful crosses in my notebook. I code each of these crosses with a number/ letter system. The letter is the season and the number is the cross #. So the C group is all the seed from my third season here in OR (I would run out of letters if I went back to '64!) and C26 would be the 26th cross. If I number any seedlings from that group they are labelled with numbers so the first seedling is C26-1. That allows me to spot any siblings of that plant although at this point I don't remember the numbers although I do remember A2 as 'Killer' X self and A5 as 'Jungle Shadows' X self because they were good crosses and I had fewer crosses back then.
Kevin
valleylynn said:Kevin with the system you use, would bee pollinated seeds be Killer x bee. Oops, sorry I didn't realize what that would come out as until I typed it.
Leaving it that way for both a little humor and to learn what would be correct.
JungleShadows said:Lynn, No that would be listed as either OP (open pollinated) or X ?. "By bee" is sometimes how it is written too. I do plant a few of these, especially from cultivars that don't set seed readily. For instance, this year I'm gathering all the seed heads on 'Greenwich Time' even though it's nearly sterile. I was never able to raise a seedling from it in MA. It is an important plant though as it's from a montanum X calcareum cross, one of the few HYBRIDS from calcareum. It would be hard to make crosses on every flower and get nothing so I thought it would be one to let the bees try their luck. The other one I harvested was from 'Aymon Correvon' as I've never had seedlings from it either. Both of these cultivars were planted next to very fertile cultivars so I may get lucky and obtain a few viable seeds. In other plants, sometimes getting that first hybrid from a wide cross, gives rise to a plant that is MUCH more fertile as they tend to have balanced sets of chromosomes. Hopefully that will be my luck in the progeny from these near sterile plants.
I do a lot of hand self pollinations, especially in hybrids that are from very different parents. For example, 'Stuffed Olive' is from 'Olivette' X 'Malby's #2' (my plant of this did NOT look like the 'Gloriosum', it was a red self colored rosette. See the photo in Helen's book of 'Malby's Hybrid"). I wanted the olive color of 'Olivette' with red leaf bases. 'Stuffed Olive' is more green with red bases and I self pollinated it, hoping to get the full olive color and red bases that may be more persistent and the shape of 'Olivette'. Many genes are segregating there so I planted out ~65 seedlings from that cross. Some of these are showing the olive color and a few are already showing the red leaf bases. Shapes on these is all over the place, some very narrow, some quite wide. They are very crowded so I will have to pick out the favorites and then see which shape they assume with a bit more room.
Kevin
valleylynn said:Kevin can you point me to information on the above three Sempervivum (‘Purdy’s 90-1’, ‘Engle’s 13-2’ and ‘Aymon Correvon’) being the same plant?
JungleShadows said:Lynn,
I don't know when it became 'Aymon Correvon'. It may have been to distinguish it from the heuff that was "Correvon's Hybrid' that became 'Henri Correvon'. I wasn't privvy to any of those changes.
Anyway, this is the description of the plant that was sent to the US and this was the one deemed identical to 'Purdy's 90-1' and 'Engle's 13-2'. Helen did think 'Engle's 13-2' had a slightly different leaf shape but the plants grown in adjacent beds at the Crane planting even measured the same. The latter could be a seedling of it which might explain the minor fluctuations.
Bill Nixon was convinced they were all the same. Helen thought Engle's 13-2 was different.
Here's the description from Peter Mitchell's book of 'Corrrevon's Hybrid'.
"Sempervivum 'Correvon's Hybrid'
The origin of this unusually coloured hybrid is unknown. The velvety grey-green rosettes are medium sized. Does not produce many offsets, but otherwise a worthwhile addition"
Peter did NOT like the hybrids and was pushing the species. All the hybrids in his book occupied like 3 pages whereas the species were covered in the remainder! That's not my view of the semp world, even back in the 70's. He really hated the "Skrocki method"!! His wife did some hybridizing, but it was mainly towards incorporating some of the species into the hybrids.
Hope that helps clarify all this Lynn.
Kevin
JungleShadows said:
The semps that have lots of tectorum and the heuffs all seem to be the least affected by the winter and the ciliosums and velvets the most unhappy. The one exception is 'Lipstick' that looks just fine. It is from 'Silverine' so has tectotrum and wulfenii in the background too. Maybe that's all it needs. Patty Drown's 'Tamerlane' is a similar sort of cross and is not affected either.
One thing I have found here is that the semps need to go through a period in the fall when the water is cut back and no fertilizer is applied. If they go into the winter in lush growth, they are DOOMED. Plants grown more hard survive just fine.
Kevin
JungleShadows said:Paddy,
Love the name! My mom's side of the family is from Black Lake in County Cork so it may be in the Irish blood to breed semps!
Sometimes you can stress the plant into flowering before its true time but often the stalks so produced are shorter and have fewer flowers/ seed. You'll get more and more healthy seed from plants blooming on their normal schedule. I bought a few plants that were potted my first year in Oregon, which gave me a start with flowering plants. Potted plants are easy to cross pollinate as you can bring the whole plant indoors to do your crosses and not have to worry about the bees.
Kevin
JungleShadows said:Paddy,
No it's a GREAT question!
Most traits are inherited equally from both parents, but certain cytoplasmic factors, genes from the chloroplasts and mitochondria come just from the female parent. Generally I will do the cross in BOTH directions as I have to cover the two plants in order to make the cross. For example I crossed 'Borscht' with its sibling, in both directions. That gave me twice the seed from that mating. If I do it one way, I cross the most vigorous plant as the pod parent. The vigorous plant tends to produce more viable seed and it also might have the vigor genes from its mitochondria too.
I have a slightly different strategy with nearly sterile plants, like 'Greenwich Time'. In some cases I let mother nature take its course and collect whatever seeds form, figuring the bees might have a chance of finding a bit of good pollen on the plant or find a mate that is compatible. On others, I cover the plant and make hand crosses on it with a variety of different pollen parents, hoping that one will work. In my normal crosses, I will make the same pollination a couple dozen times to get a lot of seed from the desired cross. For example, I got in excess of 400 seeds from each of the 'Borscht' X sib and sib X 'Borscht' cross. I'm hoping I get the size of 'Borscht' and the more intense color of its sibling.
Greg, yeah I think the waterlily form is the best way to show off beautiful colors and patterns in a rosette. For things with watermarks on the backs of the leaves it doesn't work as well.
Hope that all makes sense!
Kevin
JungleShadows said:Julia,
Yeah this guy came to my parents house in MA and told my mom he was going to make me rich by selling my hosta. He dug 82 varieties out of the yard and then struck a deal with Klehm's Nursery to sell them, allegedly for $250K. My mom made him lunch as he was stealing us blind!
and yes finally I'm getting credit as well as my friend Florence Shaw. He stole from her when she was on her death bed! Takes all kinds, huh?
Anyway the hosta registrar knew many of these facts and finally credited Florence and I with most of these hybrids. I did have a few with me in Ohio and had given a few to Mildred Seaver that were safe.
Fortunately the plant world is filled with mostly NICE PEOPLE but there are also some serious crooks too.
Tony is a very old friend. His wife and he had me over for dinner before he started the nursery and asked if I thought a high end perennial nursery would be a success. As you can see, he has done a great business and he has a terrific eye for plant material. My LA iris 'Red Velvet Elvis' has been one of his top sellers.
Kevin
JungleShadows said:Lynn,
I always planted my seed in MA that way but we didn't have the weed pressures that we have here. Moss and winter weeds are deadly to new semp seedlings. That's why I always use sterile planting mix and plant in seedling beds that have new soil in them, and with potting soil on the top 1/2". That way the seedlings will grow at least to a sizer that they can fend for themselves a little better, The potting soil in the pots tends to crust over a little bit and you can usual lift pieces of the crust when transplanting into the seedling beds. That disturbs the roots less than transferring naked seedlings.
Anyway, my two cents!
Hmm, maybe yo need to do a Cafe' series if these work out! Maybe 'Cafe' du Monde' or something silly like "Starbucks".
Kevin
