JungleShadows said:Paddy,
I wish you were down the road as I have 70+ rosettes in my clump of 'Mulberry Wine' and I could hand you one. it was one of the last from my childhood crosses. It is from a seedling of Ed Skrocki's, his #51, that had lovely color but not the best shape. 'Minaret' had the most perfect form of the 'Suilverine' seedlings that I raised and I crossed it with the Skrocki seedling although that group was NOT covered so I always wrote the pedigree as 'Skrocki 51' X unknown but most were by the 'Minaret' pollen based upon the forms. There is another clone going around by some vendors as 'Minaret' but it's actually the sibling to 'Mulberry Wine'. It has a strong bright red base, much like the Skrocki seedling.
I never got to use 'Mulberry Wine' as a parent until I moved to OR (couldn't grow them in MS so I had a 30 year hiatus!) but I grew a group last year from self-pollinating it and among the seedlings are several that are improved versions, beautiful shades of mulberry. One is a dead ringer for the original Skrocki seedling, bad shape included! So, you do get the good and the bad. Luckily the good are very good!
Have fun with your group of new babies!
Kevin
JungleShadows said:Julia,
Yes the book clip is going on utube too. I was going to watch the TV broadcast this morning but I couldn't bare to watch it! I'm sure I'll do something goofy. https://www.youtube.com/watch?...
Cloud cover this morning has kept the temps down although the humidity is up. I watered half of the semps this morning EARLY while it was cooler. The flowers are coming so I've got to decide what to cross so I can start organizing my bags. This is something you have to be a bit methodical at doing. The only ones I hate are the heuffs as you have to tear the blossoms apart in order to make crosses as the petals are so appressed to the anthers. Regular semp flowers you can just pull off the unopened anthers with your tweezers as the flower unfolds before the anthers dehisce.
Kevin
Paddy said:This is the part that confuses me most and heaven knows I'm easily confused at the best of times. How long does a semp remain receptive to pollination . They all seem to be flowering at different intervals and even on the same plant some flowers are in full bloom whilst others are not . How long does pollen keep or is it a matter of use it or lose it ?
Yours Sincerely ,
Confused.
PS. One of my heuffs is flowering too . Does the whole plant die or just the part that flowered ?
JungleShadows said:Paddy,
The semp flower opens its anthers first. The stigma is generally not too receptive at that point. The tips of the stigmas should feel slightly sticky and they spread out sort of like a rack of lamb. To do controlled pollinations you need to cover the stalk. I use simple small paper bags to cover the bloomstalks to prevent insects from contaminating the crosses but we have essentially no rain in the summer here so the bags don't get wet. In MA I used muslin bags. Old panty hose works too.
OK so you watch the flowers now. On the ones you want to set seed you need to go in and remove the anthers before the flower opens. They are tiny globes at the tips of the anthers at this point. I use Dumont #5 tweezers as they have a very fine tip so that you can pull off these anthers without ruining the flower. Leave these flowers alone until the flower adjoining it develops sticky anthers. Now you are ready to pollinate that flower. In flowers you want to use for pollen, you leave these anthers on the flower. When they dehisce you will see a quantity of yellow pollen on them. You can either use the whole flower and rub it over the stigmas of the pod parent or pluck bunches of the yellow pollen with tweezers or a fine artist brush and make sure you have pot pollen on those stigmas. Keep the bloomstalk covered until all the flowers have been pollinated. I mark the name of the cross on the bag and also in a notebook as you can forget what crosses you have made otherwise. By marking the bag, I have a double indicator of what I'm doing.
Hope that helps!
Even in heuffs only the flowering stem dies. The rest will be fine.
Kevin
JungleShadows said:Julia,
Sort of. It shows branches where each group of species diverged from the others and because they know rates for mutation they can calculate back as to how many years ago all of this happened. Really quite fascinating. The computer calculates the maximum pairings but some of the pairings to me seem a bit weird or odd because of the geographic separation of the species. Other groupings make good sense.
Here are the groups of semps:
Group A cantabricum and dolomiticum
Group B ciliosum, atlanticum, arachnoideum
Group C artvinense, davisii
Group D montanum, wulfenii, grandiflorum, pittonii
Group E species from Caucusus except those in other groups as noted
Group F ruthenicum, marmoreum, iranicum
Group G kosainii, tectorum, minutum, calcareum
It is interesting that our hybrids do come from a fairly broad spectrum of the genome types within the genus although of course most owe their background of tectorum, montanum, marmoreum, wulfenii and arachnoideum.
Kevin
valleylynn said:Very interesting Kevin. I hope this isn't a stupid question, are the calcareum a type of tectorum, or a distinct and different species?
JungleShadows said:Lynn,
No these are GROUPS of species so the species are still intact. calcareum has different chromosome counts, flower color, etc. that differs from tectorum too.
Kevin
JungleShadows said:Yes the watermarks are from uneven distribution of surface waxes that causes the underlying anthocyanin colored cells beneath to have different shades. Think about adding candle wax over a basic clear color in different amounts and you have an idea as to how the colors can be affected. It adds a lot of distinction and beauty to those that exhibit these characteristics.
One of the sibs to 'Borscht' has the strongest contrast in the watermarks that I have seen and it seems to pass it on to its seedlings too.
Lynn is right about the clinic. All the semp crazies in one spot!
Kevin
tcstoehr said:The water markings seem to match the outlines of the leaves above it, leading me to assume the pressure of one leaf against another has something to do with this. Perhaps influencing how much wax gets deposited where? If not, then why do the watermarks match the leaf outlines above them?
JungleShadows said:Tim,
Actually the watermark patterns are quite variable, especially in the better watermarked ones. You do get SOME change in wax deposition becvause of subtending leaves but it's more minor than in many true watermarks.
Kevin
JungleShadows said:OK to your questions.
The book is due to the publisher in December of 2016, so it will be 5-6 months before it appears.
I do keep things organized to get the crosses done. As the rosettes start to show flowering stalks I make a list and decide on the best combinations or whether I need to self pollinate a plant to understand it genetically. In Oregon, we rarely have summer rain so I simply put paper bags on the bloomstalk and write the name of the cross on the bag (and a copy in my notebook) over the stalk before the first flower opens. I do crosses as part of my regular routine, generally between 9 and 10 AM the pollen is in good shape and I can start spreading it in crosses. I cross for 1-2 hours each day and try to pollinate all the flowers on 2-3 branches on a stalk. That way you will get sufficient seed from a given cross to see some of the segregation of traits. Some crosses give fewer viable seeds so you need to pollinate lots of flowers. A few very recalcitrant parents I let open pollinate and just collect the seed. These are cultivars where I've made hand crosses and obtained no seed. Sometime the bees will find a parent that will set seed on it. I do this as a last resort as most of the bee set seed gives poor copies of their parent. Generally even the bees only set a few seed on these recalcitrant parents.
The seedlings are really pushed. They are treated with Quick Start once every other week. That way they are good sized now and have increase. Many have developed their characteristic colors and, by spring, the remainder will have their "adult" colors. The few seedlings that are kept from each batch are labeled with a seedling number and the rest are given away. This way I have space for new seedlings and the land is not tied up with seedlings.
Hope that helps!
Actually I should have ~110 total bags of seeds. And of course I have iris, daffodil, daylily, hardy geranium, etc. other seed from crosses. Can't help myself!
Kevin
JungleShadows said:Judith,
I ONLY use the bee set seed as a LAST RESORT. Generally this is a disaster as many of the seedlings are just poor copies of the parent or worse. One year for the clinic I planted a bed of my hand crosses and a smaller bed with just bee set seed. The results were astoundingly different. There was nothing much to look at in the seed from open pollination. In contrast, I numbered 30 seedlings out of the same number from hand pollinated seed. This year I'm only saving the open pollinated seed stalks on 'Greenwich Time', 'Tamberlane' and 'Aymon Correvon'. The first two I think are triploids as the pollen looks less than perfect so it will be the rare pollen grain or ovule that has a balanced set of chromosomes. This year there were 6 stalks on 'Aymon Correvon' and there does look to be some seed on these that looks viable. Only time will tell. I planted two stalks worth last year and got a big goose egg!
I am very curious as to what the parents of 'Aymon Correvon' are like genetically. In some ways it looks like a montanum X tectorum type of hybrid. 'Tamberlane' is that type of cross and it has the unusual pink blossoms that indicates its hybridity.
'Greenwich Time' is from 'Cleveland Morgan' (tetraploid) X calcareum (diploid). It was the only seedling from the cross. If I can get some seedlings from it they should have better fertility. It would be nice to get some really large velvety purples. The genes are there!
Kevin
valleylynn said:Kevin do you know anything about the parentage of 'Rita Jane'.
I look forward to seeing what you get from the 'Rita Jane' seedlings. That could be very interesting.
JungleShadows said:Lynn,
All the ones of Sandy MacPherson's except 'Oddity' were from bee crossed seedlings that appeared in the garden. If I had to guess i would say 'Purdy's 70-40' as a parent as it has such wide leaves too.
The seedlings from 'Rita Jane' are showing extremely wide leaves but of course not much color at the moment.
OK out to the garage to clean seed. Good job for a rainy miserable afternoon!
Kevin
