I have been having so much fun breeding my own Anthuriums and growing them from seed. Its like an adventure every day. Not being any sort of professional, having no degrees in botany or anything associated, I have just been playing at making mongrel plants. The only 'science' I know about it I learned in Junior High....the basic Mendel's laws. That being said, this is an example of just how these basic principles can play out in the backyard hybridizer's greenhouse....
The F1 (first filial generation)...the initial cross between two genetically distinct plants.... This is my F1. This is a hybrid anthurium, Anthurium clarinervium x faustinomirandae. This is not a plant I hybridized myself, I bought it as a hybrid. The original cross was done my someone in So FL many moons ago.
F2...the 'next generation'...or the plants that result from crossing 2 sister seedlings from the original F1 cross. (in layman's terms, interbreeding). I think that this usually refers to the pollen and flowers of two separate 'sister seedlings'...but in this particular case, my mother plant self pollinates. Self pollination is a characteristic of the Clarinervium parent. I do not have to pollinate this plant by hand. It makes its own seeds on a regular basis. These are my F2's from the last batch of seeds. There are 3 distinct 'looks'. The seedling type in the first photo is the most common. The other two seedling types, there are only a very few of each.
Theoretically, if I am able to grow these plants to adulthood and then interbreed the 3 types with each other, this will produce the F 3 generation, which is referred to as the 'Reducing generation'. Plants produced from these crosses could be selected out and reproduced for certain traits. I am unlikely to get that far LOL. Its fun enough that I have 3 different plants from the same parent and same batch of seeds.
