Oh boy, that is a good question, Della. I initially got the seedling in the first photo below from a friend who had stopped by Fred Fellners place - a hybridzer in Alberta - and picked up some seedlings which she brought home for her garden here in Saskatoon. I just happened to stop by before she had them planted and had a look at them. I noticed that one of the seedlings had flowers with this kind of light coloured "feathered" pattern. I got kind of excited about it and asked if I could have a bulb of it. She had picked up quite a few seedlings (flowering whole plants) from him so she said I could go ahead and take it - we do a lot of trading plants, seeds, etc. Anyway, I brought it home and planted it. I remember at the time thinking hmmm… are the markings the result of a virus or what? I still couldn't help being excited about the seedling though. So, I pollinated a flower on it the next year and eventually planted out a few seedlings. None of the seedlings from the cross showed the markings which was kind of disappointing, but the stippled seedling (photo two) was in this first group of seedlings. I thought it was kind of interesting, so I put it in a bed of selected seedlings. The next year this same stippled seedling now showed the "feathered" pattern which kind of blew me away - very strange indeed. I crossed it back to its "feathered" parent this past fall and now have about 20 seedlings up from the cross. Now, virus are not supposed to be tranfered via seed so I should in theory be able to rule out tulip breaking virus. There are now tulips with this same pattern on the market that do not carry this virus which in fact was responsible for the "feathered" pattern on the very very early tulips (1800s ?) with this pattern that at the time sold for a fortune.
I am now going to have to wait for this second generatin or F2 to see if this pattern shows up in the seedlings - fingers crossed.
Guess this answer got a bit long, but hope I answered the question you asked.
I know something strange happening that I hope to have the answers to at some point.
