Hi all,

Sorry Keith, but I do find “split for” easier on the tongue and self explanatory to us plebs.!

Last year Helen Marriott sent me from Japan a Toshio Koike ‘Spathiolate Bronze’.  Marilyn Paskert was with her at the time and sent the best photo (which is attached) describing it as “huge flower, petals divine”.

Helen pollinated it with what she described as a Koike ‘Hirao’  “with slightly Vico Yellow flower form”.

The berries survived the journey well and there was a good crop of seed which I distributed among friends keeping 10 for myself which I planted in May. Of those, 6 have green stems and 4 are pigmented and similar results have been reported by the friends who I gave seed.

To me this absence of anthocyanin with that parentage can point only to the probability of green flowers in those  six (i.e that the ‘Spathiolate bronze’ is ‘split’, heterozygous, for green) -  unless there has been a reversion to the group 2 Yellow with green from which ‘Hirao’ was bred. Any other explanation or must we wait for time to tell?

Mick Dower, Cape Town.

Hi all,

Bill Morris features here again because one of his yellows has been the mother of the best mirabilis hybrid I have bred so far.

Most miniata/mirabilis hybrids I have seen up to now have a ‘mop’ of tubular shaped flowers, but this lady bred from a Bill Morris Yellow pollinated with mirabilis pollen collected in the habitat has bell shaped flowers with a lot of pink colouring in them. I found it difficult to capture the pink on the photos attached – the first taken outside and the second taken inside with ceiling lights and a sheet of black paper held as background.

I could not resist pollinating it with the Umtamvuna Yellow – one grandparent mirabilis, one Group 1 Yellow , one a pastel with Group1  Yellow genes and the fourth a hybrid of Group and Group 2 Yellows.

What is significant about mirabilis hybrids is that unlike hybrids bred from the other pendular flowered species you do not have to select down to even F3’s to get a good result – most of the mirabilis hybrid F1’s have been worthwhile.

In my experience the only other pendular species that does produce all good F1’s when it is used as pollen parent for miniata is the Ngome Yellow (officially wrongly called gardenii var. citrina, because a study of its DNA has placed it with caulescens and it also does not breed true – it was found among pastel coloured flowers and I have not yet heard of its selfed seedlings or crosses between two yellows flowering yellow – they flower pastel so you can only rely on an offshoot for yellows).

Mick Dower, Cape Town.

Hi all,

It has been an up and down season for me this year health wise and weather wise which has interfered with my attention to and photography of my clivia.  However, two Australian yellows have surpassed themselves.

The first is Bill Morris’ ‘Sky Chase’, certainly the best yellow I have seen with its superlative colour and flower and tepal size. It is the firtst photo.

But out of the blue ‘Col Pitman’ has put its hand up with quite the best flower it has produced for me – the second photo.

Mick Dower, Cape Town.

Here are the photos of Kirstenbosch Supreme and its hybrid with Umtamvuna 29B taken last year and another taken this year with a maturer umbel but the colour in the photo is too pale

Mick Dower, Cape Town.

Hi all,

Many enthusiasts in this country and some visitors from abroad to the International meetings held here every four years have climbed down into the Umtamvuna Gorge situate in southern KwaZulu-Natal near Port Edward and the Transkei border. A photo is attached.

Miniata grow profusely in this gorge and they all have a very distinctive leaf form shown in the second photo. They are stiffer, more like nobilis, and a little broader (7cm) than most miniata but with a rounded end forming a beak. They are a bit greyer in colour and easily distinguished amongst other miniata.

In 1998 we collected two plants with pastel coloured flowers there and some seedlings. They are very slow growing.

The seedlings have still not flowered but those in flower were called “32C” and “29B” using the RHS Colour Chart, which was the only colour chart then available. On our New Colour Chart their flower colours would be numbers  29-30 and 36 respectively.

32C has suckered freely but the others have not. Photos of 32C and 29B are attached.

Kirstenbosch Supreme is a hybrid of Kirstenbosch Yellow ( Group 1) x Natal Yellow (Group 2) with a large umbel held well above the leaves which are normal miniata leaves. It therefore carries both group 1 and group 2 Yellow genes. A photo is attached to the follow up to this message because I have run out of space,but you will find a better photo on the back cover of Clivia Yearbook 2.

It was pollinated with Umtamvuna 29B and has produced a very good yellow with a strong peduncle and large umbe (see photo attached to follow up message)l.  It has not inherited the Umtamvuna type leaf.

I have also crossed Oribi Gorge Yellow (not Group 1 or 2, but this gorge is a little further east of Umtamvuna) with Umtamvuna 32C resulting in only pigmented seedlings.

However, Floradale Apricot pollinated with Umtamvuna 32C produced 5 out of 16 green stemmed seedlings which have not flowered yet but have also not inherited the Umtamvuna type leaf.  Since Floradale Apricot produces green stemmed seedlings when pollinated with Group 1 Yellows and with Chubb Peach (also Group 1), the yellow now produced from Umtamvuna is probably the result of the Group 1 Yellow mutated gene combining from both parents, but clearly there is still a lot more work to be done with the miniata from Umtamvuna.

Mick Dower, from a Cape Town suddenly beset by winter storms in summer! 

Hi John,

What is its breeding?  Looks like Appleblossom.

Mick Dower, Cape Town.

Dear group members,

I agree with the comments Marilyn has posted about terminology.

I am very concerned at the continual confusion for novice hobbyists when they buy seeds or un-flowered seedlings on eBay of “named” Clivia crosses. Different sellers approach the description detail content in various ways. Please be aware that the resultant seedlings, whilst they may be excellent plants in their own right, should NOT be called the same as one of the parents. I do receive a lot of communications relating to this issue so I wanted to bring it to a wider audience again.

Kind Regards

Ken Smith

International Registrar for CLIVIA

Sunny Blue Mountains west of Sydney, Australia

Marilyn wrote:

Hi Keith

Thank you for revealing to us a very interesting and appropriate clivia account. Do you perhaps have any images available of the flowers from  the Bodnant Yellow?

Could you perhaps also provide the reference 1, 2 and 3 you made, as they did not appear in the message.

Thanks again.

Chris de Vry

From a hot summers day in Pretoria