Lynn,
Wow! That's a lot of plant matter, must have been quite the fleet of boxes I really appreciate you fishing that list out, it's interesting to hear what semps they found desirable and otherwise inaccessible in Europe. Some of those plants I haven't heard of, but some are extremely common here. Emerald empress, Red Rubin, Silver King, and topaz can be found on lots of websites and nursery shelves. Hard to believe those ones hadn't made it over the lake yet, but I guess without a project like this how would they. As big as some of our plant distributers are there must not be any that are international. The toughest part of importing plants is getting someone on the other side to do the legwork in getting the necessary certifications. Without major business incentives arrangements like this between collectors are probably the most effective way to bridge the gaps. I'll have to go look up some of those semps I'm not familiar with now!

As a side note, I noticed Kalinda on your list as the tectorum version. I think I may have found three distinct kalinda's, one that has a warm red that fades to golden brown, one that is a long-leaved vibrant green with a pink center, and one that seems to stay fairly small with dark tips and a tawny/green coloration (probably your tectorum type). Which one did Ed introduce? do we know?

Sol,

You are so right. I have imported twice from Fernwood and three times from Erwin. It's always good to see what the Europeans are doing and they have more hybridizers on their side of the pond than we do. Some of these plants aren't happy under US conditions but most seem to be doing fine. When they arrive they are generally not the happiest although the last couple batches I've only lost about 5-10% of the cultivars. For these plants, I have found that growing them in pots in the filtered light of my patio works best.

This year I've used quite a few of Erwin's in my crossing and have used Howard Wills's Lion King the last two. Of curse Killer is behind many of my lines too. It will be fun to see how these plants work in crosses with my line.

Kevin

Kevin,
I think there's going to be a few major benefits in crossing your "killer" strains with some of these cutting edge European varieties.
Firstly I assume these strains are highly generationaly advanced. Like the new plants in your "killer" line, they've been selected for distinction in there own categories presumably more than the average cultivar just because of the more recent introduction dates.
Second; the fact that they have been developed in a totally different gene pool may add variability to your seedling crop.
Lastly I suspect that breeding convergent genetics developed in their own different vacuums might lead to extremely potent colors and shapes, for instance adding their strong purples to your strong purple lines could potentially result in a particularly dark semp.
Pluss there's always the obvious tantalizing opportunity to take a strain in a totally new direction by crossing with some of these very distinct plants.
Personally I can hardly wait for some of my fancy new euro-strains to bloom, but I don't have many of them yet and most of mine are only in small colonies if not single rosettes at this point.
Really excited to see what you come up with Kevin!
-Sol Z

Me too!

I should see some of those combinations next spring as I have Persephone X Black Lotus and other Euro X Vaughn crosses to see along with the next generation of Vaughn X Vaughn. Patent Leather Shoes is already pretty dark but I think we could get bigger rosettes and more persistence. For example, I took Black Lotus to a whole range of very dark semps, including Patent Leather Shoes, and those crosses are already showing very dark rosettes. Hopefully I'll get some of the size and shape from Black Lotus too. What I see in those seedling rows so far are WIDE leaves mostly.

I think that Erwin's Waldmeister is probably the best full green semp. A very neat plant too. Made quite a few crosses with it this year. Would like a whole yard of semps with that form and neat growth habit.

Was laughing the other day at two groups from WIDE crosses: Bunny Girl X Lion King and Yukon Snow X Lion King. It's the semp world version of Bambi meets Godzilla! Anyway these are all rather large and cobwebbed as seedlings so I'm hoping for some big cobwebs to get them bigger yet. Colors and shapes could be interesting there too.

Think we're catching up a bit with the Europeans on the heuffs too with these latest things. I'm finally getting colors, shapes and sizes that I have never seen in those.

Anyway, hold on tight, it's going to be a fun ride!

Kevin