Viewing post #1513672 by Char

I've been working this out in my mind overnight and again this morning while stripping the garden, showers off and on so figured I'd pull all blooms old and new to start fresh tomorrow. Only half done. Anyhow, came in and read your excellent explanation Maurice. I was having better luck getting away from so much use of the term "fan" and instead picturing the crown area of 1 fan being able to produce the main SAM then if conditions were good extra or replacement SAM's that would also have time within the season to bloom creating what we consider to be rebloom. Your diagram showed that perfectly.

admmad said:@seedfork
If we include the crown in the definition of a fan then we have a potential problem. What happens when one scape is produced by the fan and then it divides into two sets of leaves with two growing points in the same growing season? Is that now two fans or still one fan? If only one of those sets of leaves produces a scape in that same growing season is that rebloom?

Then I read further down and saw your questions regarding crown. Maybe part of the problem is the way we use the term fan as gardeners as opposed to the scientific usage. When we look at a fan it appears as one unit (division) of the plant, we purchase 1 or 2 fan plants and when you plant a 1 fan plant it is one fan. If that fan were to grow a scape then 2 new leaves and put up another scape it would still appear to be one fan with 2 scapes. Whereas you are saying it is actually 2 fans, each with 1 scape. So I think what you are saying is a fan can only have one SAM. Every time there is a new SAM it is a new fan on the original roots and crown, but not always a new division (gardener version of fan). The addition of "same" in the explanation of rebloom would be incorrect because it is not the same fan sending up a new scape. Rebloom would be, quoting from Larry, "when a plant produces one or more distinct separate periods of flowering" and adding "within a single bloom season".

admmad said:
A cultivar that has the ability for a single SAM to produce more than one scape would likely be a new mutation. It would be important as the SAM would survive flowering and scapes would be produced directly and routinely always from axillary buds. The axillary buds would not produce any leaves before producing the scape.

Adding another twist, found these two fans today on the same plant, each with two scapes and no leaves between. One scape on one of the fans had FFO today, none of the other 3 scapes have bloomed yet. Not thinking I have some new mutation but they do appear to fit what you described.