Sunday, May 23, 2010

Sports! But Not The Kind You Play!

A wonderful trait found within African Violets (saintpaulia - pronounced Saint-Paul-e-ah) is their tendency to sport.  In this context, sport means a mutation different from the original.  One of the earliest sports was the pink blossom followed closely by the double pink blossom.  Sports have given rise to some wonderful breakthroughs over the past 50 years.  Some of these breakthroughs include, but aren't limited to:

1.  Variegated foliage
2.  Pink, red, white, coral and yes, yellow blossoms
3.  White edges (also known as Geneva Edges)
4.  Girl foliage
5.  Sticktite single blossom
6.  Double blossom

The plant below is Rob's Combustible Pigeon.  You can see that half the blossoms (those that are all blue with a white edge) have sported (mutated) from the original (fantasy pattern with white edge).  Once a plant sports, it is very unlikely that it will ever revert back to the original.

 

No comments:

Post a Comment