Hi Aad, It works like this: Crossing two different species produces a fairly uniform batch of offspring. This is the F1 generation. Every plant in the F1 has one set of genes from Parent 1 and one set from Parent 2. This is why they are all more or less alike. Crossing any sibling plants (or selfing one of them if fertile) from the F1 produces the F2 generation. In the F2 generation, any offspring can have anywhere from all genes of one parent to all genes of the other parent. They are mostly pretty well scrambled. What you call F1 depends on where you are starting from and what your goals are. Crpssing two geographically separate plants from the same species should produce simply more of the same species. If the two populations have developed significant gene differences, then you might want to call your seedlings the F1 from population A x Population B. Jim At 04:19 PM 5/26/2014, you wrote: This is triggered by pbs bx 360 where F2 was mentioned twice 7. Hippeastrum neopardinum x H. papilio, F2 16. Hippeastrum ‘Giraffe’ F2 x ‘Purple Rain’ So after reading wikipedia about hybrids a F2 is considered a self pollinated F1 and the offspring is not uniform but having all sorts of variation based on the gene combination from the parents and dominancy of genes. But that leads to the more mysterious question when do I get F1 hippeastrum. So let me give some examples. 1. Whenever I cross two species? Doesn't seem to concur with the notion of uniform offspring. 2. Whenever I cross the same species but from two separate gene pools most likely caused by geographical distance. So is Hippeastrum papilio F1 possible. To me this sounds strange as I would call the offspring also papilio species. 3. Same as 2 but then from neighboring plants, so most likely same gene pool. Still would call the offspring papilio species instead of putting F1 after it. 4. Whenever I cross two cultivars. Also like 1 this doesn't concur with notion of uniform offspring. So in essence I can't come up with a scenario where the result is a F1. So what do I overlook. Can anyone explain what I'm missing. Aad Holland _______________________________________________ -- James Shields jshields46074@gmail.com P.O. Box 92 Westfield, IN 46074 U.S.A. _______________________________________________ pbs mailing list pbs@lists.ibiblio.org http://pacificbulbsociety.org/list.php http://pacificbulbsociety.org/pbswiki/