Re: N.* coccinea???

Jan Schlauer (Jan@pbc-ths1.pci.chemie.uni-tuebingen.de)
Tue, 2 Jan 1996 11:51:21 +0100

Dear Dave,

>Anyway, I've been thinking about N.* coccinea and N.* wrigleana.
>On your list they both have the same mix of parent and grandparent
>with the only difference between them being that N.* coc has N.*
>hookeriana as the female parent while N.* wrig has N.mirabilis
>as the female parent. This don't seem right to me since N.coc
>looks a lot more like N.rafflesiana while N.wrig looks like N.
>mirabilis (as it should).

Are you sure you are talking about original clones of these two hybrids?

The drawing of N.* coccinea (Gard.Chron.2.ser.18:169, 1882) has rather
little similarity to _N.rafflesiana_, while the (probably male) parent
_N.mirabilis_ reveals himself e.g. in the finely denticulate margin of the
leaf base.

The drawing of N.* wrigleyana (Gard.Chron.2.ser.17:143, 1882) is similar
(to the one of N.* coccinea) but the denticulate margin is missing
(instead, the tendril is slightly hairy).

> The only problem is that I can't find mention of N.ampullaria *
>N.mirabilis (or visa versa) hybrid. Now this seems rather amazing
>to me when you consider the large number of hybrids involving
>these three species; N.ampullaria, mirabilis and rafflesiana.
>They all = the same formula of 1/4 amp, 1/4 raff and 1/2 mir.
>Do all these hybrids look different?

None of these hybrids is very spectacular (in hybrids, characteristic
features of the parent species are always diluted). The differences are
slight (but sometimes discernible).

>If so, I guess the parentage
>of N.* coccinea would be correct; but it just seems improbable

What do you mean by "just", exactly? Why do you think it is improbable?

> and looking at the plants, incorrect.

You should rather look at the original publications and the original
material (of which rather little survived in the collections!) than on
(possibly misidentified or wrongly labelled) "the plants" (of maybe
doubtful origin).

Kind regards
Jan