JungleShadows said: Lynn,
You know that looks similar to my plant of calcareum from Ceuse, although maybe more gold right now. Ceuse is one of my favorite calcareums.
It's too bad the calcareums only bloom rarely as it would be good to have more of that germplasm in our semps. It tends to make nice compact plants with good weather resistance, perhaps because it has to withstand more Mediterranean conditions in its native France.
Kevin
JungleShadows said:
Funny story on 'Flasher'. Helen was a bit of a prude and wouldn't sell my 'Devil's Advocate' because of Satan. Luckily she didn't know what flasher referred to so that went on the market. It was the first one that had bright red color for me. It is from a seedling of Ed Skrocki's, his #51, that had very bright color but was a wretched plant
I know Ed Skrocki almost split a gut laughing at the name, knowing full well that Helen didn't!
Kevin
Volkmar Schara said:I don't give the parents anymore for several reasons. The mother is always exactly determined - with the father I cannot be sure! I work in the last years mostly with parents who have not been named yet. Most of the seedings are from very new plants that are still in the trial stage. The plants are always close together and therefore from the group will also be the fathers! However, many plants then fail to make the introduction and are discarded again - so naming the mother doesn't make much sense. Black Tears comes from a seeding of Sweet Little Tears - hence the name - I would also be very interested in the father. From the whole sowing only this seedling was kept! Really a pity, I expected more from Sweet Little Tears - one of my favorite varieties! I hope I could help you a little bit.
Kind regards Volkmar
JungleShadows said:
You know I made that cross for 'Stuffed Olive'; just to piss off Ed Scrocki! When he named 'Olivette' I asked "where's the pimento?" and made the cross with Malbyi #2, which was one of the better reds in the 70's. Anyway, he did enjoy my little jab and loved 'Stuffed Olive' too. 'Olivette' is a problem grower for me here in Oregon but 'Stuffed Olive' is easy.
Kevin
Zaubergarten said:This new breeding is growing and reproduces well. The inspiration for the name came from Erwin Geiger. He immediately said that such a Semps must be called 'Dracula'.
JungleShadows said:
'Pacific Feather Power' is one I'm suspicious of being marmoreum and arachnoideum and one of the seedlings from PFP X self gave a nice red marmoreum type. Several of the cobwebs from this group are reddish too.
Kevin
JungleShadows said:Lynn,
The pod parent is 'Killer', a wide-leaved and big rosette so it's pollen parent must have differed considerably in form and size, with more pointed leaves, waxier and smaller. The progeny from 'Killer' X self varied from small ones like 'Red Hot Chili' to huge ones like 'Big Six-O' and everything in between. About half of the seedlings were red/ green bicolors and the rest reds to red-purples so LOTS of genes segregating. It has been exciting to watch each generation and their combination with the 'Jungle Shadows' group that gave the exceptional dark self-colored rosettes and dark base of the leaves seedlings.
There is a F3 seedling that we have jokingly called "Killer on Steroids" as it's like a MUCH brighter 'Killer'. it's being evaluated for introduction now. I selfed it and will plant that seed to get the F4.
Kevin
JungleShadows said:OK for one Pekinese was not hybridized per se. All of Helen's introductions were small seedlings that came in the box with the plants from Sandy MacPherson. Being frugal, Helen planted these and named any that appeared distinctive. Pekinese was one of these.
It isn't pure arachnoideum but probably has a bit of marmoreum in it. It doesn't look like the typical tufted from tectorum X arachnoideum. No indication of any roller in it. The flowers are typical semp flowers and it has fertile pollen. Any semp X roller hybrid is sterile.
Kevin
JungleShadows said:Lynn,
Yes I grew Ramses way back. It was a sort of a sooty red with fairly broad leaves for the time. Think Helen sort of repudiated it after the newer reds started coming out from Skroki and me. That was 45 years ago though and a lot of water has gone over the dam since then!
Kevin
MelissaHopper said:My Borscht semp is doing something different.
The biggest rosette, the one in the middle, has started to get ruffles on it's leaves. I have never seen this before.
Closeup
Bigtattoo said:Melissa, the 'Borscht' you sent me is showing some rippling as well. I wonder if this is a winter anomaly. Don't some semps develop warts in winter, then they disappear with new growth in the spring? Could this rippling be a similar effect? Kevin, Lynn, anybody??
JungleShadows said:The ripples are due to uneven growth. Groups of adjacent cells are growing faster than the surrounding cells so the cells from the rapidly growing areas bulge upward. The bumps are in the center of the leaf not the edges. These seem to be a proliferation of cells at these points in the leaf.
This line is full of watermarks and they are likewise due to differences in cell expansion and wax deposition.
It will be interesting to see if down the line I can make these features more or less constant.
Variety is the spice of life!
Kevin
JungleShadows said:
What I have seen marked "Engles" should actually be 'Engle's 13-2'. It is similar but not identical to 'Purdy's 90-1' and 'Aymon Correvon'. When they did the Dalton project to determine the correct names, the thought was that 'Aymon Correvon' ( then recently renamed from "Correvon's hybrid") is the correct name for all three. Helen Payne STRONGLY disagreed with this decision. Since then she was proven right. At the Dalton project, plants going into bloom were quickly removed so that none of the stock plants could be contaminated by seedlings. However, the blooms of these cultivars are different, especially comparing 'Aymon Correvon' to the other two. 'Aymon Correvon' is also BIGGER than the other two. 'Engle's 13-2' has the most compact rosette and leaf shape, with 'Purdy's 90-1' a bit more elongated.
All three are from a montanum X wulfenii cross, probably F1, as that hybrid tends to be sterile or nearly so. I was looking at my notebook from my youth and in '68 I tried to raise seedlings from both 'Engle's 13-2' and 'Purdy's 90-1' and did so each year for 4 years with NO seedlings. My notebook says "seed looks odd, lots of chaff". Both montanum and wulfenii are diploids and their chromosomes must be enough different that it's impossible or nearly so for them to produce normal gametes. Each year here in Oregon I let the bees try to cross 'Aymon Correvon' and each year I dutifully plant the seed, noting "more chaff than seed" still. Despite planting all the open pollinated seed from 4-6 stalks each year not a single seedling has germinated. 'Greenwich Time' which is montanum X calcareum cross (again two diploids) has netted me ONE seedling. It is a nice one though!
Hope that helps!
Kevin
JungleShadows said:'Greenwich Time' is from 'Cleveland Morgan' X calcareum. It goes through a couple phases, sometimes looking like a more purple larger version of 'Cleveland Morgan' and sometimes looking like a velvety calcareum. Helen didn't believe me when I told her the pedigree as she had never had calcareum bloom. Several years later a box arrived from Helen with a blooming calcareum and a note attached saying "I believe you now".
It was from my very first year of crossing, If you cover the calcareum stalk you will see that it makes TONS (well maybe not tons, but lots) of pollen. I dud use 'Extra' and 'Guillaume' in crosses last year and rediscovered what I had known in '64: calcareums make lots of pollen!
The only bad thing about 'Greenwich Time' is that it's a cross of two diploids and nearly sterile. I had one seedling last year and about 6 this year from open pollinations. I do save those as they are likely to be odd combinations of things genetically.
Kevin
JungleShadows said:Holly Jolly is one of the more unusually patterned Killer seedlings and it did SCREAM XMAS because of the red and green coloration. It's not as big as some of the others from those groups.
Oddly enough I haven't used it much in crosses. I was concentrating on the bigger siblings. (much to Bev's chagrin!)
Kevin