I vaguely recall somebody commenting about trying to make crosses with "Tiger Babies" (and in particular trying to find the right pollen parent). I thought I'd post my results from this season. Bear in mind that other "Tiger Babies" clones might be more/less fertile, so your mileage could vary. But for anyone in Australia, this may be useful data.
"Tiger Babies" X "Tresor" (known 4N)
Set 3 pods. Result was 17 questionable seed and 600 chaff. Haven't had much success with "Tresor" elsewhere, either; only one cross as pollen parent worked and none as pod parent.
"Tiger Babies" X "Navarra"
Attempted to set 3 pods. None of them took. Not sure of the ploidy of "Navarra", either.
"Tiger Babies" X "Pearl Jessica" (known 4N)
Set 3 pods. Result was 2 good seed, 16 questionable seed and 637 chaff. I am not 100% certain of the ID of "Pearl Jessica" - I think it quite likely that it is correct, but am waiting for next season to confirm.
"Tiger Babies" X "Pearl Jennifer" (known 4N)
Set 3 pods. Result was only 28 questionable seed. This is in contrast to other members' comments that they have successfully gotten seed from this crossing; I suspect this is due to it being a different clone.
"Tiger Babies" X "Dreamland" (probably 2N)
Set 1 pod out of curiosity. To my surprise, this was the best result of the lot! Got 14 good seed, 19 questionable seed and 189 chaff.
It's a bit difficult to determine exactly will cross with "Tiger Babies", given its triploid nature and the fact that it was produced by embryo rescue. I decided to do some digging to see if there was any way to narrow down the list of candidates.
From the RHS register, the parentage is "Pink Tiger" X mixed pollen from pink and white Asiatics. "Pink Tiger" appears to have been created prior to 1950 and has the recorded parentage: (L. regale x Unknown) X diploid L. lancifolium
I am not certain when embryo rescue started being used, but I'm wondering if "Pink Tiger" may have been a normal hybrid. The ploidy appears to be unknown, but there are a number of other registered hybrids from the 1960s and 1970s, so it would seem to be more likely to be 2N than 3N. Assuming 2N, it would be 50% lancifolium, 25% regale and 25% unknown.
Extrapolating further, I'm guessing that the triploidy of "Tiger Babies" results from 2N from "Pink Tiger" and 1N from the pollen parent. If this is the case, then "Tiger Babies" would then theoretically be 1/3 lancifolium, 1/3 unknown Asiatic, 1/6 regale and 1/6 unknown.
If it was the unknown Asiatic that was the source of the 2N material, then it changes to 2/3 unknown Asiatic, 1/6 lancifolium, 1/12 regale and 1/12 unknown.
It would seem an Asiatic with strong L. lancifolium background might be a good start point?
