At our local North Star Lily Society education meeting today, hybridizer Brian Bergman was the speaker. He showed some pics of his Blue Flash, while mentioning that it really is purple, and the blue come from light reflecting off a certain way. His actual words were "reflecting mainly at the edges", but I believe what he actually means is off the surface edge anywhere on the petals, rather that just the outside edge that we normally think of as "edge". In this respect, Blue Flash is aptly named in my opinion, as the blue tint can come and go depending on the reflecting light. Brian said Blue Flash is most likely an LA. He had two instances where he lost massive hybridizing records. One when his car was stolen with his record book inside, and another time when he had a crew of young assistants helping him plant seedlings in the field, and they gathered all the labels in a single pile "for" him. Crying Apparently Blue Flash was one of these lostlings.

The title of his presentation was "Quarks and Quirks", which was about the really great hybridizing results (the quarks) he's had and the duds (the quirks) that come along for the ride. It could have been kinda boring, but he continually inserted tidbits of hybridizing advice and commentary, and there was no shortage of questions from the audience, either.

Some take-aways:
---- in the majority of cases, it is the pod parent that contributes most of the structure to the seedling:
-- leaf and stem characteristics
-- inflorescence shape and how pedicels arrange.
-- height
-- etc.
---- in the majority of cases, it is the pollen parent that contributes more to the flower form.
---- Brian does not protect his crosses from contamination, either before or after the deed is done. He feels the mechanical futzing. etc., can impede optimal pollination.
.........................In his view, I assume, the end result is more important than the surety of knowing how it got there.
---- LA x A will usually yield offspring that look more asiatic than LA.
---- TO x LA will yield offspring that look more like LA.
---- T x A (T is pod parent) is more apt to be successful than A x T.
---- germinate seeds of interdivisional crosses in low 60s F. Once they are up, you can move them to higher temps. He seemed quite confident that germination of these
..........................seeds will fail at 70 F and warmer.

Very interesting! You summarized it very well. Did he happen to mention anything about color, whether one parent would be more dominant that the other? I know we discussed this some time ago, but our discussion concluded it would most likely be a simple blending.

I strongly agree agree with lower germination temperatures for lilium. That's why in many of my pictures you'll see my (sometimes dirty) seed pots in a room with a white carpet even--because it's the only place in the house that has a good spot where I can hold 65-68'F temperature consistently. I have to admit I learned that one the hard way. And the fact he mentions even lower temperatures for interdivisionals is very good, valuable information to know.

Very good notes, Rick. Thanks for sharing them.

Actually, the question about color was asked in a round about way. His response was that color expression is so complex that you can't say.

He gave an example of a pink crossed with a darker pinker. What did he get?
--- ORANGE! And is it his fault or hers?

In another thread posting about virus, I said that a virused cultivar/plant could be saved by seeding it because seed would not carry the virus. But that the new plant would not be called that cultivar/name but rather it would be called a 'strain' of the parent cultivar/ name. Was I correct?

The offspring of a parent cultivar will likely be just the offspring of a parent cultivar, not a strain. A strain is a group of similar lilies with similar genetics, so similar that when crossed they still produce the same similarities. Most cultivars are not selections within strains; they are chosen from the progeny of crosses of two dissimilar parents. Therefore the great variation in genetics from a cultivar predicts dissimilar offspring, which by definition is not a strain. And let's not forget the self infertility factor: with what lily did said cultivar cross?

But the gist of what Lorn says is correct, that one can save seed from a virus infected lily, and produce virus free babies. And that these babies can no longer be called solely by the parent cultivar's name because they are not the same.

So, for example, if you saved seed from a virused Ariadne lily (Lilium 'Ariadne'), the seedlings produced can no longer be called Ariadne lilies (or Lilium 'Ariadne').
They could be designated (as examples):
seedlings from Ariadne lily, or
seedlings of Ariadne lily, or
Ariadne lily seedlings, or
Ariadne lily offspring, or
Lilium ex 'Ariadne' - (not to be confused with "x" or "×" (meaning: cross), "ex" is a Latin word (meaning: out of, from).

--
a little more trivia:
"×" or "x" (as in Lilium 'Lollipop' × Lilium 'Cathedral Windows') is technically pronounced "cross".
"ex" (as in Lilium ex 'Ariadne') is pronounced "eks"-(like the letter X). (It's as close as we come to Latin pronunciation in the English language.)

Some good information. Rick. So, let's see if I understand this correctly then. As an example: let's say I have a seed lot of Ariadne and I raised a batch of seedlings from it. These I would call Lilium ex-'Ariadne' or any one of the five definitions you define. Going further then, if I find two of these seedlings to be very, very similar in all aspects and, also, very similar to the parent Ariadne, I would cross them. This new group of offspring would then be called a strain of Ariadne. Is that correct?

Normally I just skip right thru your definition of phrases and just call everything a strain. I do, however select two from the first batch that greatly resemble the mother and continue from there.

Assuming that last group of offspring is all similar, then you would be on your way. But, one generation of all similar offspring would not prove it is a strain. I would venture that a minimum of 3 or 4 generations (being all similar) would be needed. Something else Brian Bergman said that I neglected to say before: It is not uncommon for hybrid lily offspring to "suddenly" show strong alliances to one of their grandparents, even though no such characteristics were observable in their parents.

Take, for instance, the case of a hybrid from two heirloom corn strains (all seed grown heirlooms would be strains). Because there is so little variation within each heirloom strain, one might expect that the genetic combinations of the offspring would be very limited. And they are. The progeny are all the same. This is exactly how hybrid corn seed is produced. So each of these hybrid corn plants are (outwardly) the same, but we can't expect that if we crossed them, similar offspring would be produced. In fact, this is not the case at all. The offspring of hybrid corn are not similar.

Jumping to lilies, the analogy is not so cut and dry, because corn only has 20 chromosomes and lilies have more (actually 24), but it still holds. Species lilies (species anything) will have more diversity than heirlooms, as heirlooms are effectively inbred (at least those that are reproduced by seed). Still, you will see somewhat similar results. The F1 generation of a species cross will have some variation, but not nearly as much as the F2 or F3 or more generations.

Genes are sometimes predictable, and sometimes not.

Well, by golly, I surely must have been exposed to this first generation nomenclature somewhere along the way--just, for whatever reason, it never registered! I was aware though that it took a couple generations or maybe even several generations to purify a strain. Which is why I guess, if I ever got as far as generation two and still found something undesirable, I'd probably just drop the project. I can see where good strain development would take a long time (and a lot of garden space in the meantime).

Delving here in an area, I usually leave to chance, when crossing liliums, but feel this may be beneficial knowledge.In the Dec 2012 issue of 'The Trumpeter',2 pages of notes, by the late Joe Hoell, on Dominant and Recessive Traits in Liliums and their role in Practical Hybridising: A quick run down:
Red is dominant to yellow or white
Tall stems are dominant to dwarf stems
Side facing or pendant flowers are dominant to up facing flowers
Epigeal germination is dominant to Hypogeal germination
Seed from trumpet crosses always germinates epigeally, even if crossed to orientals..
As I say, 2 pages with examples /names and many blunt statements[way too much for me to type]-Anthony

Thanks for the information, Anthony. Maybe over time you can add more information from that issue of the Trumpeter here. I think all of us who dabble in pollen would be interested.

A Natural Hybrid by Mother Nature


A picture of the most probable parents (2010 file photo)
The probable pollen parent on the right, pollen parent on the left. More photos of each 2009-2012.

Pod parent





Pollen Parent





There is another (either/or) parent possibility, if potential grandparent's influence is considered but it as a parent is not considered here in this write up




These three plants present the most likely scenario because of close proximity and similar blooming times. With hundreds of other individual Trumpet and Aurelian cultivars in the area, those resultant combinations were not cosidered. So, in this scenario, the assumed pod parent has a high bud count of raceme, pyramidal inflorescence, while the pod parent has a medium bud count of umbel inflorescence. The color and size of the flower greatly favors the pollen parent, while inflorescence favor the pollen parent. I still need to do a leaf and stem evaluation.

An interesting side note is that all three possible parents here were part of that large cardbord box full of live lilies that a friend brought me, having been dug from the yard of an estate sale several years ago. They're three out of about a dozen I eventually selected from the bunch. You may recognize the pollen parent as the one in my Avatar.

It's interesting, almost ironic that this plants first flower (this year) should hang directly over the very post where she was born and only by some twist of fate was not not disgarded after being pulled with a handfull of weeds. I have nicknamed her Lucky Lady

I was looking at some flow cytometer chromosome counts today on several OT cultivars. Here are a couple examples. What surprised me is that I always thought when we called a diploid a 2n it was 100% 2n. The same for 3n and 4n, etc. But the numbers show differently. A couple examples.

Anastasia (OT4n) tested: 2n=17%, 3n=14%, 4n=60%, Differing ploidity= 9%
African Lady (OT3n) tested: 2n=2%, 3n=79%, 4n=11%, Less than 4n=8%
Blueberry Crush (OT2n) tested: 2n=80%, 3n=15%, 4n=5%

The numbers are pretty much typical of the 15 to 20 samples I looked at.

Seems like I read this somewhere... don't recall where though. Likely it was in a QB or NALS yearbook.

So with Anastasia, for example, they tested the ploidy of the cultivar from specimens from many sources to obtain these percentages?

So does that mean certain cells are 2n, 3n, 4n, etc of a given cultivar?

Over the next few days, I'll be discussing this report, the numbers it contains and what they mean, their value to hybridizers and growers and so on. I have many, many questions and if you also have questions, please post them or Tree Mail them to me. I'll ask them all.

Rick, the tests were run on a single sample obtained from each adult cultivar plant from the gardens of another hybridizer in Latvia. The University there recently installed a new 'state of the art' cytometer. The report is in 'Excel form' and I'll ask for permission to post it if there's a way to do that.

These were somatic cell chromosome counts? Where did the cell samples come from? Root tip? Scale? Are only wide interdivisional crosses unstable? eg. would a regular 2n species show any such variation?

Woah... how is it even possible for an individual to be composed of mature cells of varying ploidy? Are all interdivisionals chimeras? If the 2n, 3n and 4n cell groups could be isolated from each other, would they be geneticaliy different? (As in, be composed of overlapping but distinctly different sets of chromosomes to those of the other ploidies?) Are the 4n necessarily a doubling of the 2n chromosomes present, or are some different chromosomes represented? Are all the 2n cells identical? What chromosomes are represented in the 3n group?

Is that even what the data meant - maybe I misunderstood?

Yes, it's hard to formulate questions when we hardly understand the basis!
It's not that unheard of for certain seeds to contain multiple ploidy, but the logic is there. This is blowing my mind!
I'd really like to hear their speculations and conclusions.

As far as I know, the only way to post an excel sheet is by posting it as a photo (screen capture).

Rick, a seed from one of his crosses tested 36-3-54. It is also interesting to note that Anastasia, commonly referred to as 3n, actually favors 4n at 17-14-60.

This is the first time this hybridizer has had samples tested. He says the test results raised more questions than they answered, so many of the theoretical and hypothetical questions I have at this point are the same questions he has. He plans to have more testing done this year. There are two people I know of who could probably answer some of them (Ms. Freeman, Dr. Griesbach), so as time permits, I'll compose my list of questions and ask them.

Fact: The sample was taken from a solid outer scale of a fresh dug bulb.

Question: What is the best location to take a sample? For the sake of uniformity, is there a standard procedure setting sampling location, time and age of the plant, etc.?

My Thoughts: While the test results greatly surprised me, I was not totally shocked. I was told some time ago that even in humans, our counts can differ slightly from organ to organ, especially in newborns and from one to another. We are not necessarily 100% 2n. I wouldn't be shocked to find somewhat differing results from scales, stems, leaves (even new and old), or buds. So, if I were to start a testing program, I would sample a center location mature leaf of the plant right at breeding time or point of pollination. I suppose the Dutch have such a standard procedure but it's most likely proprietary.

Question: Can tissue culture somehow alter counts (as opposed to the traditional or natural) ?
It's interesting to note that all 20 plus bulbs tested were obtained from Holland and were tissue cultured. Could this be why the Anastasia tested had counts favoring 4n?

Della, I copied your questions exactly and they will be added to the long list of questions the biologists at the university will be asked the next time testing is done. I think you may even have more ideas and questions you might think of; add them when they come to mind. I didn't have any trouble coming up with about a dozen theoreticals.