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Message |
    
Jgwoodard
My Garden
| | Posted on Sunday, January 14, 2007 - 05:18 pm EST : |   
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I posted these a few years ago but thought it worth doing again. The important aspect of these plants is that they are all from the same parent clump which had no other hellebores growing near it at the time, so they represent a natural strain, if there is such a thing in my garden. The variation is interesting but all are spotted without exception. Here are 10 different plants in that group:
And here is an example of a later open-pollinated seedling from one of the plants above (I have no idea which one) that is somewhat different with pink and barely any spotting. The 'strain' is now dead since there are so many other plants in the garden now, but the spotting still pops up with some regularity. I will post some photos of the newer open-pollinated plants when the buds open.
Jgwoodard
- TN,
Zone "7"
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Valia
My Favorite Photo
My Garden Journal
My Weather
My Garden
My Time
| | Posted on Sunday, January 14, 2007 - 06:06 pm EST : |
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Breathtaking, every one.
And the variety is its own delight.
Valia
- WA (summer) UT (winter),
Zone "Winters -- Southern Utah"
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Carol23
| | Posted on Sunday, January 14, 2007 - 08:06 pm EST : |
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The first, second and fourth are my favorites , Joseph. I happen to love spots, especially when they are dense.
It's a dominant trait, isn't it?
Carol23
- Southeastern PA,
Zone "6B"
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Terryk
My Weather
My Garden
My Time
| | Posted on Sunday, January 14, 2007 - 09:47 pm EST : |
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What a selection of spotted ones, they're beautiful.
Terryk
- NY,
Zone "6"
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Matthias
| | Posted on Monday, January 15, 2007 - 03:42 am EST : |
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That is a very nice series with some beautiful flowers, Joseph, and very interesting. #3 is my favourite photograph and #9 is my favourite flower pattern closely followed by #8.
Note how the intensity of spotting strongly increases from the outer sepals to the inner ones (best visible in #8).
Carol, this is an interesting question. I doubt that there is anything like dominance or recessiveness in flower colour inheritance in hellebores, but, as I´m not a breeder and have not done any strict experiments, I can only conclude this from observations: I know a large colony of a few thousand naturalized wild hybrids (presumably pure orientalis) that must have escaped and been derived from a few (?) plants in a nearby garden many decades ago. In this colony all colour flowers from pure white to dark red and everything from heavily spotted to totally unspotted are evenly distributed over the whole area. Spotted flowers have popped up here and there, but are clearly in the minority. It is often believed that dark flower colours are dominant (which is true in other genera), but also this doesn´t seem to be true, at least not in this colony.
Is there anyone here who has studied this more closely? Mike?
Matthias
- South Germany,
Zone "7"
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Heathergirl
My Favorite Photo
| | Posted on Monday, January 15, 2007 - 10:47 am EST : |
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Impossible to choose a favorite. Each one has a charm of its own. These would look beautiful painted subjects I think.
Heathergirl
- County Durham,
Zone "8"
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Valia
My Favorite Photo
My Garden Journal
My Weather
My Garden
My Time
| | Posted on Monday, January 15, 2007 - 11:28 am EST : |
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I thought I liked the most spotted the best, but that last one is showing up in my dreams.
Valia
- WA (summer) UT (winter),
Zone "Winters -- Southern Utah"
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Geoforce
My Weather
| | Posted on Monday, January 15, 2007 - 02:51 pm EST : |
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I think I prefer #1,2 or 8. I like the dense spots in 2 and 8 but the background color in #1. All are great looking.
Geoforce
- Pennsylvania,
Zone "USDA 7a"
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Susanq
My Favorite Photo
My Garden Journal
My Weather
My Garden
My Time
| | Posted on Monday, January 15, 2007 - 03:25 pm EST : |
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I love them all. The densely spotted one must really stand out in the garden.
SusanQ - Zone 4b-5b Wisconsin |
Galanthophile
My Favorite Photo
My Garden
| | Posted on Sunday, January 21, 2007 - 05:56 pm EST : |
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What a lovely selection. Very eyecatching and each has its own particular charm. Beautifully photographed too!
Galanthophile
- Ann (Northern England),
Zone "8"
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Jgwoodard
My Garden
| | Posted on Monday, March 31, 2008 - 10:21 am EST : |
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I thought I would reopen this because I have been amazed by the results of open-pollinated seedlings from my original plants. My assumption that the 'strain' would peter out is completely untrue and the reality has been different from my expectations. I noticed this year that again the blooming offspring are 100% spotted. Despite having different kinds of blooming hellebores (very many, and of significant variety) for quite a few years now, there hasn't been a single plant from 30 or so spotted offspring (themselves from a single parent) that don't have spotting.
Jgwoodard
- TN,
Zone "7"
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Lovinlife
 Supporting Member
| | Posted on Monday, March 31, 2008 - 01:45 pm EST : |
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And I'm so glad you did, Joseph, because I missed it on the first go-round. These are hellebores are absolutely lovely.
Lovinlife
- Utah,
Zone "5"
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Goswimmin
Supporting Member
My Weather
My Garden
| | Posted on Monday, March 31, 2008 - 07:00 pm EST : |
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Joseph, I love every one. I would like to see a picture of the parent plant.
Mary
Goswimmin
- Georgia,
Zone "7b"
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Terryk
Supporting Member
My Weather
My Garden
My Time
| | Posted on Monday, March 31, 2008 - 08:11 pm EST : |
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The spotted ones hit a soft spot in my heart. I like the white ones with just a light sprinkling the best.
Terryk
- NY,
Zone "6"
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Matthias
Supporting Member
| | Posted on Tuesday, April 01, 2008 - 01:41 am EST : |
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Joseph, thanks for sharing this interesting observation. Hellebore hybridisers have often reported that they found spotting to be dominant in inheritance and indeed, your results point in this direction.
But there are other voices and other observations. Mike, for example, believes that hellebore flowers are mostly self pollinated, which would be an excellent explanation for 100% spotted offspring from spotted parent plants. Unfortunately I know of no controlled experiment on this subject ... do you?
What I have seen in the wild and in naturalized colonies of garden escapes is that there can be a few spotted plants among many unspotted ones which would clearly contradict the statement that spotting is a dominant character in inheritance.
The slightly spotted seedling in my "Nice Hybrid Seedling" thread seems to come from (seed parent x pollen parent): H. liguricus x spotted Hybrid which indicates:
1. Natural cross pollination can occur in the garden
2. Spotting can occur in the offspring if the pollen parent is spotted (trivial observation :-))
... Glad you reopened this thread:
Nicely spotted flowers are among my favourites and I can't have and see enough of them.
Matthias
- South Germany,
Zone "7"
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Jgwoodard
My Garden
| | Posted on Tuesday, April 01, 2008 - 08:04 am EST : |
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I wonder about this; it would seem that the time when mature pollen is produced and viable on the pod flower is also of crucial importance (the latter my trivial observation :-)). I remember thinking about this very thing when I noticed clumps of 'H. torquatus' (inside the national park where H. niger also grows alongside) with half a dozen or more seedlings with essentially similar features, nearly uniform. I also wonder in addition to Mike's intuition if proximity also plays an important role (there are probably 75-100 plants in a bed that are all spotted and from the same 'strain', basically with white/creamy sepal backgrounds). I suppose that part is also common sense and plays a key role in my particular situation (Gisela Schmiemann's method of 'color beds' perhaps demonstrates this idea).
What is particularly interesting to me, however, is that relatively close by are very dark plants, some essentially like very dark H. atrorubens (purchased under that epithet), another in the black/red range (as opposed to 'blue-black'). Seedlings from these plants have produced over 80% spotted hybrid offspring (uncontrolled open-pollinated). Only perhaps 10% resemble the parents even remotely.
To answer your question Matthias, no I don't know of any controlled experiments and I can't imagine how one would go about it. Is it possible 'spotting' is sometimes present even when it is not expressed visibly?
Mary, the parent is at a botanical garden I used to work at, but is essentially similar to 3,7, and 8 as I recall (it was many years ago).
Matthias it was your hybrid seedling post that reminded me of this. I wish I had taken the time to photograph this year's blooming crop from the above batch to post here; it would be more interesting than words. :-)
Jgwoodard
- TN,
Zone "7"
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Addict
| | Posted on Tuesday, April 01, 2008 - 01:33 pm EST : |
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Hi Joseph
It isn't intuition but observation on my part. However I haven't done the stats so it can't be tested as a hypothesis.
I keep all of my parent plants in a poly tunnel with fine mesh sides to exclude insects but allow wind and airflow.
Even if I don't hand pollinate a large percentage of flowers set seed. These generally come true as if the plants were selfed (remember most of these plants are at least f6 or more)
When I had a woodland with Hellebores growing I found that around each plant there were tens of tiny seedlings which if left were mainly true to the nearest plant with very little crossing evident.
In our recent field trip to the balkans of which more when I get time to process the photos and gather my thoughts into coherent postulates- we onlt saw pollinating insects on one site a pasture of H. herzegovinus where honey bees were being kept in the field by the farmer. They were swarming all over the flowers as there was little else in flower at that altitude at that time. However all other sites revealed no pollinators.
Further the plants were generally very similar with occasionally one or two "unusual" forms but they had not appeared to cross fertilise yet with the mainstream plants.
Whilst they are protogynous Hellebores do remain receptive on their stigmata when the anthers produce pollen. Indeed many x hybridus and species show re-curving of the stamen until they touch the stigmata. The exception being lividus argutifolius and their inter specific crosses.
As the flowers are pendulous and cup shaped with large heavy pollen grains that stick together the chances of wind cross pollination are few. However strong winds will causes the flowers to shake and pollen will drop from their own anthers onto the stigmata.
I am not saying that there is no insect pollination of course there is depending upon location, temperture and time of year it may be significant but I hypothesise that it is not the main way Hellebores produce seed.
Tim says you both saw small beetles climbing all over flowers on your last visit together.
These sound like pollen beetles which eat the pollen as food and accidentally distribute pollen on their hairy bodies.
This is not unusual in summer but less so in the colder early spring.
They also tend to stay on a plant until the pollen is exhausted so thus visit fewer fl;owers than bees, hoverflies etc.
Hope this helps explain my reasoning for my hypothesis.
addict Staffordshire zone 8(just) UK |
Matthias
Supporting Member
| | Posted on Tuesday, April 01, 2008 - 02:26 pm EST : |
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Mike, you may not have seen them, but all over the Balkans, Italy and also in my garden I have often seen big bumblebees visiting hellebore flowers. They already fly at much lower temperatures than honey bees.
I can add one interesting observation now: Friends have one very isolated not so strongly spotted hybrid in their front garden where no other hellebore is in reach for pollinators. This plant has produced quite a few seedlings around it that flower for the very first time this year and I had a closer look at them today. There are nine flowering seedlings (a narrow basis) and all have the same basic pink colour. Eight seedlings are more or less spotted but one of them is completely unspotted. So offspring from selfed spotted plants can be unspotted. Maybe this also depends on the intensity of the spotting?
Matthias
- South Germany,
Zone "7"
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Peppa
My Garden
| | Posted on Wednesday, April 02, 2008 - 01:27 am EST : |
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This is very interesting, and in fact I had a similar case.
Although I had one spotless flower, most of the seedlings that came from the spotted parent have some sort of spots themselves. These are self-pollinated, so they might be cross-pollinated with some other hellebores, though.
Seed Parent
Self-pollinated seedlings
Peppa
- WA,
Zone "8"
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Addict
| | Posted on Wednesday, April 02, 2008 - 03:33 am EST : |
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Matthias,
your | |
