Clethra Ruby Spice question

Last year I purchased a Clethra Ruby Spice. When it bloomed most of the blooms were white, only a couple were pink! I asked the nursery why and they could not tell me, other than to say maybe it needs to acclimate itself. Well this year the same thing appears to be happening! Does anyone know why this should occur?

The nursery had it marked wrong? Sometimes a customer will remove a tag and stick it back in the wrong pot for example. Best to buy plants in bloom if you want to be 100% sure (although sometimes this even backfires).

well then they were all marked wrong! As I said it had a few pink blooms. This year I just checked at the same nursery and most of the blooms had been removed, but one had a white bloom! Also the tags were the tied on type not the slip in type and were from the nurserie's provider!

Perhaps they were grown from seed and didn't come true. Mine were a beautiful pink (all of them), with no acclimation necessary.

My pink spice is just pink-tinged white. Sparse flowering also.
I'm certain the poor flowering is due to being in too much shade.
I've blamed the poor coloration on the same excuse,
but it's just my theory.

Mine is in pretty heavy shade but has a lot of flowers! The strange thing is that the flowers are not pink tinged! Most of the flowers are white with a couple that are pink.

Well, there goes my theory...
I found the following information in the Raulston Arboretum newsletter from fall 2007,
which might offer a clue. The author concludes Ruby Spice is chimeric. He's specifically alluding to reproduction, but in other species, chimeras can display variable flower coloration. I'm not sure if this is really the explanation for your observed flowering pattern or not, but it seems to me to be plausible.

The quote from Dr Denny Werner, Director of the JC Raulston arboretum at the time:

'My favorite choice is ‘Ruby Spice’, the beautiful pinkflowered
form. ‘Ruby Spice’ can attain heights of 6’-7’, and like all
Clethra, can spread slowly via underground rhizomes and form small
colonies. ‘Ruby Spice’ was discovered as a bud sport (limb mutation) on
‘Pink Spires’, a light pink cultivar. Some years ago, I conducted some
breeding work in Clethra, crossing ‘Ruby Spice’ and ‘Hummingbird’, with
the objective of combining deep pink flower color and compact growth
habit. The first generation plants showed the vigor of ‘Ruby Spice’, and
produced flowers showing only a slight pink blush, much lighter than
‘Ruby Spice’. The F1’s were intermated to obtain F2 progeny. Considerable
variation in plant height was observed in the F2, but in a population
of hundreds of plants, we were unable to recover any progeny demonstrating
flower color even approaching the intensity of ‘Ruby Spice’. These
results suggest that ‘Ruby Spice’ is a chimera, and that the genes responsible for the intense pink pigmentation in ‘Ruby Spice’ are not
present in the cell layer responsible for forming the sex cells. Hence, the
deep pink flower color, although expressed in ‘Ruby Spice’, is not
transmitted to its offspring.

Bad news for my team Wee, thanks for the research though.

Aaargh!

Looking more closely at my plant I see that the pink flowers are on separate branches from the white and those branches appear to come from the same area of the base of the plant. so I'm not sure if the chimera idea is the reason or the possibility that I actually have two plants!

Any chance amongst the informative discussion that any images of the questionable plant behavior will be forthcoming?

'Ruby Spice' is distinct from most clones selected previous to its release. I planted nearly twenty years ago and grew (and am still growing) four different "pink" selections for comparison purposes. Most were pale pink and hard to tell from the white form without a piece of notebook paper behind the flowers.

I haven't trialed newer selections with pink (or allusion thereto) in their names, since no one I know horticulturally has expounded upon any next great thing.

The comments alluding to disappointment in their plant's performance tells me that they don't have 'Ruby Spice' at all, but something masquerading as such.

These are my pinks spires from last year...
Edited to add images are Clethra alnifolia 'Ruby Spice'.

This message was edited Aug 17, 2014 8:03 PM

To be clear, Mipii:

Are you saying those images are of Clethra alnifolia 'Pink Spires' that you are growing?

In retrospect VV, I sure did muddy those waters didn't I....lol? My images are Clethra alnifolia 'Ruby Spice'.

OK - that's much more helpful, and shows how a minor misstep can lead down quite the slippery slope...

I'd like to entreat you to make an edit in your previous posting, lest others become bewildered, beguiled, or bee balmed.

To me, your images are exactly like my plants of 'Ruby Spice' and every memory I have of observing this plant. Generally shorter flower spikes, but deeper pink throughout the inflorescence which has a relatively flat characteristic tip when flowers are fully open.

Thanks for the correction, and saving me from traipsing out in a thunderstorm to determine whether my gray matter has entirely failed me.

Your gray matter is fully functional my friend...although, I must admit I'm glad to have rattled the master for a split second, that's how we keep you on your toes...just like a ballerina...heh, heh.