Scottish Rock Garden Club Forum
Seedy Subjects! => Seed Exchange => Topic started by: Diane Whitehead on January 28, 2010, 07:14:57 AM
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I chose lots of Erythroniums from this year's exchange, and
have a question about two of the hybrids, and an explanation
about one I donated.
First, mine. Many years ago I planted a pink Erythronium from
an area beside a road. White E. oregonum was growing up in
the woods and dark pink E. revolutum was growing down along
a stream. That pink plant has sowed itself into a patch of
hundreds, all pink except for one white one, which alerted me
to the hybrid nature of my original plant.
The two hybrids I received are labelled
citrinum x oregonum
californicum x multiscapoideum
I'd like to know if these seeds represent a first generation hybrid -
in other words, the donor made the cross - or are they from a
hybrid swarm like my donated seeds.
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Interesting question, Diane. I see that your cross is presented in the seedlist text in the same way as the other two.
It may be that the donor did not specify the origin of the cross as being intentional or not.
I will pass your query on to Stuart Pawley to see if he might shed some light on the matter.
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Diana raises an interesting point for me with her referral to crosses in the seed exchange. If the donor has purchased a plant as ****** x ******* should the seed from this plant be put in the exchange as a cross or as just sp.?
For example, I have bought corms of Cyclamen x hildebrandii and of C. x wellensiekii and also seed from the exchange under the same names. I have no knowledge of the history of either the corms or the seed. If I manage to seed any of these four subjects (and manage to confirm correct naming?) should I put the seed into the exchange under these names? Please just take these Cyclamen names as being an example. As far as I know they might be rock solid reliable crosses but I am questioning the general principle of this.
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David, I see that there is no clear direction on this matter given in the Seedlist.
My own inclination in such matters would be to label the seed as Bloggsia hyb.
Perhaps it would be an idea to email Stuart Pawley for his opinion since he is the one who makes the list ..... gsp.srgc AT tesco.net ( exchanging the gaps and AT for @, of course!)
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Another source of potential confusion is that donations from forms (Bloggsia bloggsia ex 'Maggi's Favourite') may sometimes appear on the list without the 'ex', implying that the form will come true from seed :-\
I really don't envy Stuart, Diane and others this very arduous job. However it might help both exchange managers and the rest of us to have policy on each of these issues stated explicitly.
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Stuart does include in the list notes that the "ex" must be assumed in such cases, Ashley.
I agree that fuller guidelines are welcome and of course these are points that will be passed to our Seed Ex Gang.
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:-[ My apologies to Stuart; he does indeed.
So 'ex' is reserved for next-generation seed from collections.
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I have received this reply from Stuart :
"The answer for 1520 was in the Notes, Maggi, page 34 - I know not
everyone reads them! Donor Art Guppy says these are from a natural
hybrid swarm in California, though I assume the seed is from his
garden; he says quite clearly which Erythronium seeds he sent are
wild collected - 4118 & 4119.
1522 has no such information, so I assume
it is from a garden plant/s, different donor."
It is sometimes tricky to sort out the actual seedlist information in the seedlist notes, that I do know!
The note Stuart refers to says :
Proverbial Erythronia
Solomon by his proverbs (6.6) would have us all as sluggards, but here's one of us with considered wisdom. Art Guppy tells us that many an Erythroniumpersuades ants to disperse its seeds, but not so for the natural Californian hybrid swarm yielding no. 1520 he offers us this year. Some more information is available in his article in the NARGS' journal last year. He also sends a dwarf form of the popular E. grandiflorum which would be a perfect alpine garden plant - if it were a little easier to grow!"
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How to label is an interesting question and I was faced with this when posting a picture on the crocus thread.
I have a new hybrid which I pictured which is fertile which was produced from crossing (Crocus biflorus pulchricolor x Crocus chrysanthus) with (Crocus biflorus pulchricolor x Crocus chrysanthus) What do I label any resulting seed from this plant and as it is not self fertile it will need to be fertilised by one of the species or the hybrid?
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In that case Tony, I'd be inclined to label any seed as ex (Crocus biflorus pulchricolor x C. chrysanthus) x (either) the species or the hybrid. Then you could add a note to the effect that further information was available at....... ;D
I feel that ALL seed listed under cultivar names should have the "ex" in front of the name.
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i agree with lesley, that little 'ex' is crucial, and should i think be applied to any garden seed that is not produced by controlled pollination, and even then should probably be used for seed from plants that were from wild collected sources but now exposed to garden conditions..
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Stuart does include in the list notes that the "ex" must be assumed in cases of seed from open polinated crosses and all cultivars.
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I don't think the "assumed" is enough as the vast majority of people expect to get what the list says, i.e. they ASSUME that Aquilegia 'Nora Barlow' will give them plants identical to that form but the seed will give a wide variety of plants if it is from a garden source (as most seed list items must be) unless it has been selectively and consistently taken from sources which line breed for strains.
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I am inclined to agree, Lesley :-X
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This discussion has expanded beyond my narrow question.
Perhaps the "Erythronium" should be dropped from the Subject
line, but I don't know how to do that, even though I started it.
Unfortunately, Lesley is quite right. We have club and charity
plant sales here. Even very good gardeners sell seedling plants
with cultivar names. When I call them on it, they don't back down.
They are sure they are right.
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There seems to be a misunderstanding sniffing around the edges of this discussion. Not all cultivars are clones. Some cultivars are seed raised. This is most common among annual flowers and vegetables, but there's no reason it can't also be true of other types of plants.
Indeed, somewhere I was reading about apple cultivars and was surprised to read that in "the old days", apples were grown as seed strains that came true, for the most part.
To muddy the waters, I'm pretty sure that some ancient cultivars weren't described as being clonal or not. One has to remember that Liberty Hyde Bailey only introduced the words "clon" (now clone) and cultivar about a hundred years ago. Before then, what we now think of as cultivars were given Latinate pseudo-botanical names. Thus an 'Albiflora' could simply be any white-flowered version of a given plant, not a specific clone.
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I don't think the "assumed" is enough as the vast majority of people expect to get what the list says, i.e. they ASSUME that Aquilegia 'Nora Barlow' will give them plants identical to that form but the seed will give a wide variety of plants if it is from a garden source (as most seed list items must be) unless it has been selectively and consistently taken from sources which line breed for strains.
And it's another impossible one to police or resolve. Using similar wording to the SRGC, the AGS list, states that: "Members are reminded that named cultivars and hybrids cannot be relied upon to come true, and plants raised from seed from cultivars should not be labelled with the names of those cultivars."
Also, in agreement with Rodger's points, not all cultivars are clones, also some modern names that look like cultivar names are not clones.
All seed is "ex". Cyclamen sent in to an exchange, for example, are all seed raised and there is a range of cultivar names which may or may not breed true to a certain percentage. Or they may be open pollinated and anything may happen.
I don't like listing a seed as just Bloggsia hyb or Bloggsia sp and I will only do that if I have no other information. Hardly anyone is going to request Bloggsia sp when there are several thousand other names on the list to choose, unless, of course, you are trying to grow the national collection of Bloggsia. So if given anyother information about colour, provenance, parentage etc, it will be listed in addition to sp. Bloggsia sp ex JCA will get chosen whereas Bloggsia sp will not, as people assume that anything sp is not desirable (probably in the majority of cases, correctly). Meconopsis sp will not get chosen (as people assume its M cambrica), Meconopsis sp blue will get chosen.
The cyclamen hybrid issue is a different story. Cyclamen hybrids do produce viable seed and the offspring is variable. I have many times raised C x wellensiekii from seed and they are all different, a sort of spectrum between the two parents. If a plant is listed as Cyclamen x wellensiekii on a seed list, then it is possible someone has recreated the cross and the seed is from one of the parents (Cc cyprium or libanoticum in this case) but I think this is unlikely and would be stated, and usually the seed has been collected from a plant of Cyclamen x wellensiekii. In this case, the resulting plants will be C x wellensiekii and as such, will exhibit the full range of variation existing in the hybrid.
One other point, some donors send in seed from garden plants labelled as Something sp. Depending on the genus (and if it is something that rarely exists in gardens as a pure sp), I might change this on the list to Something hyb. For example Aquilegia sp I will often change to Aquilegia hyb if I am given no other information, my reasoning being that if it was more interesting, the donor would most likely have given further information (e.g. Aquilegia yellow fls or Aquilegia ex Colorado, or even just Aquilegia ex WC).
Diane W, re the Erythronium hybrid - we had different donations from Arthur Guppy (but with similar stories of introgression in a wild population of Fritillaria), Arthur always gives quite a lot of very interesting information, which we are not able to include in the list. I am sure if you contacted him directly (he's not so far from you??) he would be able to give you more information.
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I wonder about seed listed with an 'ex'. How many generations
away is it from the original? With hybrids, generations are
listed: F1, F2, etc, though never in seed exchange lists.
I have a species grown from wild-collected seed. I keep it
isolated, or (less likely) I hand-pollinate it and send in its seed
to an exchange labelled "ex wild collected from X Mtn peak".
When the recipient sends in the seeds from a plant grown from
my seed, what should the label read?
With named cultivars, if I see a listing that says " ex 'Wonderful' "
I assume it means the seeds are from a seedling of 'Wonderful',
so already a generation removed. That is not necessarily so,
though.
I tried to get around the problem of having people assume seedlings
could carry their mother's name by just writing descriptions instead
of the name. This didn't work too well.
I have a named cultivar that produces really good seedlings.
I sent a photo of the cv and some of its seedlings to the Forum
and promised to send seed to the exchange. I labelled it with a description.
It was tossed in with who knows how many others as "hybrids",
so I mailed seeds directly to the members who had hoped to get it
from the exchange. The next year I sent the seeds with the cultivar
name of the parent and it was listed separately.
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With named cultivars, if I see a listing that says " ex 'Wonderful' "
I assume it means the seeds are from a seedling of 'Wonderful',
so already a generation removed.
Having written the rhodo seedlist locally for years, "ex 'Wonderful' " to me would be open-pollinated 'Wonderful' and I would list it as 'Wonderful' o.p. On the other hand I would probably write the plant label as (ex 'Wonderful'), only because the ex would catch my eye first and I would be less likely to grab the plant in haste as a 'Wonderful'.
Seeds from a seedling of 'Wonderful' I'd write as ['Wonderful' open-pollinated seedling] o.p. It can get very tedious for the seed manager (this is how I lost my hair).
It was surprising how many donors used F2 etc. loosely. I got seeds as F2 and F3 that were clearly open-pollinated. To me 'Wonderful' F2 is either 'Wonderful' selfed or ['Wonderful' x a of it sister seedling].
It was great to get comments on a donation like Diane's.
Hellebores and Rhodos were the worst cases of ex and F abuse.
johnw
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This is the way I think, when I donate seeds.
When I receive seeds from wild collections, I sow them and, and when I collect seeds from these plants I label those like ex CC-xxxx (if that was from Chris Chadwell).
If I have sown my own seeds from that ex CC-xxxxx and collected them for distribution, I would not mention the original collection number at all, if this was an common plant.
For instance, let us think that Chris collected seeds of Meconopsos horridula (what he often does) the seeds of his collection is CC-xxxx Meconopsis horridula. When I collect and send seed of this first generation seeds to a seed-exchange I label it as Meconopsis horridula ex CC-xxxx. The person who receive this seeds can label her/his plants with this name, but not distribute it further. From second generation after wild collection the collection-numer is of no (or little) value due to normal garden normal hybridisation. And by the way, I do never use the "ex" if I collect seeds of a Primula who is supposed to have hybridiced with another in the garden, in such circumstances, it will be just an "hybrid of uncertain origin".
I hope to get a lot of comments now :)
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ViggoU - I would have listed your Meconopsis seed as say (Meconopsis horridula ex Chris Chadwell #8333) F2 if you had no other Meconopsis in the garden, meaning it was either selfed or sibbed. If you had other Meconopsis in the garden including other horridulas then (Meconopsis horridula ex Chris Chadwell #8333) o.p. Agreed?
I certainly agree that something like ['Wonderful' open-pollinated seedling] o.p. means very little and should be simply be "garden hybrid". 'Wonderful' F2, F3 etc is a different matter.
johnw
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Oh Golly! Obviously the "ex" or other apparently helpful letters are pretty much useless, in a seed exchange, as from comments above, it seems just about everyone has a different take on meanings and interpretations. Likewise, the seed lists would be tomes long if all possible and relevant information were to be included, so it seems as if we're stuck with the cultivar or hort names, regardless of true origin and provenence. As always I suppose, a case of Caveat Emptor.
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I really like chatty catalogues that offer not just a description,
but that retell the history and extoll the virtues of the plants. Of
course, it's usually expensive seed that merits such an extravagant
catalogue - it reminds me of the literary menus of expensive
restaurants.
We don't need such descriptions for most of the seeds offered in
an exchange - Google Images can probably offer enough photos
to help us choose.
However, anything out of the ordinary could benefit from some
publicity.
How about a dedicated discussion thread titled "what I'm sending to
the seedex 2010". Except, no discussion, no chitchat, or it will, as
Lesley wrote, become unwieldy. A photo, a comment or two about
the plant ("this selection of the usually ungrowable plant from the
summit of Mt. Celestial thrives at sea-level on a foggy island").
The photos could be posted throughout the season, while the plants
are still in flower, and the photo could be removed if there is a crop
failure.
Of course, there could be a danger of some members trying to circumvent
the exchange (Private message: Psst! I'll offer Xx and Yy if you'll send
me some of that seed")
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I think this is a good idea Diane and if I had enough of it, I'd start it with the white form of Gentiana verna, collected recently. But after sending some already promised privately, there's about enough for 2 or 3 others, if anyone would like it. If I leave it to next year's lists it will be a year old so better to send it to someone now.