non-glaucous foliage of xBrunsdonna

Ken kjblack@pacbell.net
Tue, 08 Nov 2011 09:12:02 PST
Hi Jim,
 
Thank you for the information.  Confirming your comments, these were from the B.josephinae seed parent, and I did lose about 75% of the original 20 or so seedlings which I speculate were a 'successful' crossing of B.josephinae with A.belladonna pollen.  They seemed especially vulnerable to mealy bug ... much more so than the reverse cross and my other amaryllid seedlings.    I treated with an imidacloprid based systemic and the surviving plants now seem quite vigorous.  I am now wondering if that mealy bug infestation could be a contributing factor to the splitting of the remaining bulbs.   I also did periodically use a weak solution of inorganic fertilizer on these seedlings with irrigation.  With the first transplant to larger (1-gallon) sized pots last year, I added a low-nitrogen 'bulb' fertilizer to the potting mix ... a blend of mostly DG and cheap commercial potting soil, along with a couple handfuls of my clayish backyard
 soil.  
 
You are also probably correct in speculating the Amaryllis pollen parent had some Brunsvigia parentage.  That pollen parent came from the late Wayne Roderick in the San Francisco Bay Area of California.  At the time he gave me the bulbs (about 1995) he indicated they probably had Brunsvigia josephinae parentage, and that they came from his mother's garden which I think he said was in Marin County (North of San Francisco.)  He did not mention a Les Hannibal connection.  They generally bloom later than my 'regular' A.belladonnas, and produce larger and more radial umbels with slightly larger individual florets, usually numbering 12-18.  Their foliage is definitely non-glaucous and lighter green in color. 
 
Almost all of my seedlings of the reverse cross (Amarygia ... A.belladonna X B.josephinae) do display the glaucous, blue-green foliage color, and is quite discernible from the first seedling leaves.
 
Looking forward to hearing results of the Brunsvigia-Amaryllis experiment at Camden Park which you mentioned! 
 
Thanks again,
 
Ken Blackford
San Diego

--- On Mon, 11/7/11, jim lykos <jimlykos@bigpond.com> wrote:


HI Ken,
My experience of this cross is that the seedlings of the cross both ways 
produce seedlings with glacuous - green leaves a little lighter in the case 
of seedlings from B. josephinea.  However. if your seedlings cane from the 
josephinea seed parent then you will be lucky if one in ten have survived 
the first deciduous period - they usually die off at the beginning of the 
second season.  I have found that the degree of offsets usually is related 
to how much nitrogenous fertilizer they have received. Lots of Chicken/cow 
manure in the beginning of Spring then a forest of offsets! No fertilizer  - 
very few offsets except for the occasional robust bulb.
One other option that comes to mind is that the  Amaryllis you used in the 
cross may itself have arisen from a Amarygia backcross with Amaryllis?  Very 
likely if it came from Les Hannibals Amaryllis breeding bulbs.
There is a large Brunsvigia / Amaryllis experiment experiment involving 
about 600 near mature seedlings  at Camden Park where  John Bidwill 
flowered the first Amarygia's in 1847. There are  seedlings of   B. 
josephinea x Amaryllis, B. josephinea x F1 Amarygia, Amaryllis x F1 
Amarygia,  F1 Amarygia x and the reverse cross of most of these hybrids.
They should start flowering in two years hence - I will keep you informed.
Cheers
Jim
----- Original Message ----- 
I have several pots of what I believe to be my own xBrunsdonnas ... 
Brunsvigia josephinae X Amaryllis belladonna, from 2008 seed. As I recall, 
the seeds themselves looked like all the other B.josephinae seed, but the 
foliage is non-glaucous and more greenish-yellow like the Amaryllis pollen 
parent than bluish-green like the Brunsvigia seed parent. Also, unlike the 
reverse cross where the bulbs grow large and seem disinclined to offset or 
split, it seems the little bulbs have split/offset ... a lot! Is this normal 
for this cross ... with Brunsvigia as the seed parent? I was repotting to 
larger pots this past weeked and all of pots I had labelled as B.josephinae 
X A.belladonna display this same morphology.



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