Australian and New Zealand Gardening: Bromeliads for novices and addicts, July 2011, 0 by splinter1804

splinter1804 wrote:
Hi everyone,

Tash – I’ll try and get a pic of all the seedlings in the “Kindergarten” and the “Primary School” today and post it. I’m afraid everything’s in a big mess at present with seedlings and plants all over the place waiting to be potted. Since I’ve been crook and the weather’s been terrible I’ve just got way behind with all the outside jobs, and I sometimes wonder if I’ll ever catch up with all the potting. Besides it looks like I have a heap of "homework" to do today as well, ha! Ha!

Wendy – As I said, my Gee Whiz crosses are tiny, and at this stage are still in the containers and barely 2mm high, so hardy worth a pic, but I’ll see if I can find them and take one anyway.

I like the fine spotting on your Black Beauty x Gee Whiz. Is it a big plant? It seems to have nice wide leaves which is a good feature of Gee Whiz. Do you have a pup of this one for swapping?

Wendy, you said “can't really see the Gee Whizz or Black Beauty in this pic” and neither could I (except what looks like wide leaves). However when I looked at the pictures of the parents in the Cultivar Register i.e. Black Beauty in particular, I found where the spotting comes from; it’s a throw-back to the colour of one of its parents,‘Black Beauty’. This is a c.v. of Neo ampullacea which is a mini species and is heavily banded and spotted. Being a species, it is stronger genetically and quite often dominant, hence the spotting, on your plant, and it may also have used its dominance to pull down the size a bit as well.
It often happens with hybrids where they “throw back” to a plant in a previous generation and this is why growing hybrids is so interesting, you never know what you’re going to get and it’s a bit like a lottery.

I’m attaching a pic of my Neo ampullacea, and if you look carefully at the top side of the leaves you will see the spotting that in this case was transmitted. The pic of the parent, 'Black Beauty' or to give it its full name, ampullaceal ‘Black Beauty’, is in the Cultivar Register http://botu07.bio.uu.nl/bcg/bcr/index.php?genus=NEOREGELIA&i... . This is a darker form than the one in my pic and has even more pronounced spotting on the top side of the leaves.

I know a lot of us find this reasearch boring, but I know that some of us also find it interesting and it is also very handy knowledge for anyone who is hybridizing as it can give you more of an idea of the results you will get from some of your crosses.

Hi Sue, glad to see you back again; your recipe for the home-made treatment for inflamation sound great, I must get the exact details from you so I can give it a go, as nothing else seems to work.

All the best, Nev.