Scottish Rock Garden Club Forum
Bulbs => Galanthus => Topic started by: Natalia on April 13, 2017, 02:18:40 PM
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As is known, there are chimeras - chimeras in snowdrops have 1-2 petals of the wrong kind and coloration than the other petals. For example, they have a green label.
It was hypothesized, that this is a "sectoral chimera" and when ""Twin-Scaling" bulb snowdrop, if you cut into a large number of sectors (at least 6). You can "unhook chimera" and get a snowdrop that ALL petals will have a similar green label.
Such a seemingly promising way of obtaining interesting shapes.
In 2014, I purposely made a "Twin-Scaling" of a whole group of chimeric plants (different variants of the "chimeras") Galanthus plicatus.
This year, part of the young plants bloomed for the first time..
Unfortunately, on more young plants, such an entertaining hypothesis was not confirmed.
In all cases, when the chimera was numbered, young specimens were given a similar chimera.
The most revealing one was a sample, where out of 8 onions 3 - all the chimeras blossomed, there the chimeras are the same.
Here are their photos
[attachimg=1]
[attachimg=2]
[attachimg=3]
I beg your pardon, I do not speak botanical English.
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An interesting experiment, Natalia - so much for theories!
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Maggi, I was interested to test the hypothesis :)
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Natalia,
This is really interesting, and it is always good to test a hypothesis.
Who has suggested that the unstable flower forms are ‘chimeric’?
A quick google only finds leaf variegation to have been suggested to be chimeric, see for example Cephalotus’ post here (http://www.srgc.net/forum/index.php?topic=15188.120) .
Thinking of the commoner unstable forms such as ‘James Backhouse’, if new bulbs are formed from new buds from between scales in the parent bulb then one might expect clumps to have mainly stable forms arising. This isn’t what I’ve seen. The instability seems to be unstable and unpredictable rather than ‘segregated’ as may be seen with a sectional chimera.
There is an interesting thread on chipping induced instability here (http://www.srgc.net/forum/index.php?topic=12843.0).
Chad.