P. agnata 'true blue'

Does anyone know what makes this particular ping 'true blue'?

I've got both of these plants. Take a look at the images in the plant files. The "True Blue' is considerably "bluer". Must have been one of those situations where polyploidism manifested itself and somebody jumped upon the opportunity to asexually propagate the agnata that showed up with that intense "blue" fower pigmentation by registering it as a cultivar. A polyploidy plant can triple its number of chromosomes before passing them on. If a plant generally reads a pair of genes that determines flower pigmentation as being blue, a triploid plant reads the genes 3x hence the petals are 3x bluer. I don't get into all this technical stuff with plants. I just like to grow them and enjoy the cultivars that other people create via sweat labor. If I ever ended up with a plant by accident that displayed interesting characteristics possibly worthy of something or other, I'd send the plant on to you know who. Best to leave all the fancy genetics to people who know what they are doing.

http://davesgarden.com/pf/go/86610/index.html

http://davesgarden.com/pf/go/100694/index.html

Oooh Raaa on that. I dont get into all the genetic stuff. I will let someone else handle that if the situation ever arrives. Maybe it is because I am a guy but the 'true blue' pic looks purple to me!

Wolf

I'm a guy too AND color blind so they all look like Mulligan stew to me! I just like to grow them....lots of them :)

Oh...I believe this clone was designated and named by Peter D'Amato.

This message was edited Dec 20, 2005 6:05 AM

OK, you color blind men. The flower is definitely not blue per se but it is still referred to as blue. The industry in general refers to a lot of plants as blue that are anything but blue. How it all started and why purple flowering plants continue to be referred to as blue is beyond me. Seems to me as if it would have been just as easy to call it 'True Purple' but then that doesn't rhyme so it doesn't roll off one's tongue as easily.

Ugh! Mulligan stew, I'll take the ping thank you.

Believe it or not when I went to repot all my Pings, I took leaf pulls from a few and have them in little food storage containers on top of damp vermiculite. If I get any to root, you may have whatever your little heart desireth. I think, not positive, that I've lost the 'John Rizzi' leaves. They are looking brown and mushy so I suppose that is a clue they won't root. I still have a few agnata 'True Blue' that haven't rotted and it has been over 10 days and they are still nice and green so who knows... maybe I'll have some babies for you. Other than that, my 'True Blue' will divide on its own sooner or later and you can have the division. Men deserve flowers every once in a while too.

By the way, what is Mulligan Stew? Is this something before my time or after my time?

Well Lauren there can't be many things before your time, so my money is on after! J/K you set yourself up there.

BTW I currently grow P. agnata 'true blue' so no need for babies I was just wondering what made it special. Thank you for the offer though, I am sure someone else on DG will take you up on that offer.

I have had pretty good luck latley with ping leaf cuttings. P. gypsicola split from 2 crowns to four as it went into its dormancy phase. I took a few leaf's and got an average of 3-4 sprouts per leaf, so I should have some gypsicola to spread around here soon.

Wolf

Oh Wolf, what a pure and unadulterated sweetheart you are. I feel so... so... so fossilized or something. Hold on a second, I need to turn up my hearing aids and lemme get my trifocals positioned just so and lemme re-adjust this depends here a tad and oh my gosh my lap blanket just got stuck in my wheel chair foot rest! Ah, that's better. Now that I'm all situated here... I feel the need to point out to you that 35+ is middle aged. You my friend, are middle aged- har do har har har! Welcome to my world! Now tell me what Mulligan Stew is? I did a google and came up with the following-
http://www.randomhouse.com/wotd/index.pperl?date=20010301
http://www.strangecult.com/pisser/mulligan.html
http://www.texmex.net/Mike/mulligan.htm
http://www.debstover.com/mulligan.htm
http://www.chessvariants.com/42.dir/mulligan-stew.html

And this one is scary, it started singing to me-
http://www.mulligan-stew.com/

Good job on the P. gypsicola!

How do you do your ping leaf cuttings?

Sorry to make you feel fossilized. Humm middle aged, sounds worse when you have to hear it.

For my ping leaf cuttings I just pull them off the plant and lay on damp LFS in bright light. My success rate has been quite high. Once they start to grow roots I pop them off the mother leaf and pot them up separatly.

Wolf

For the record, last time I checked I was a middle aged female, and the first photo of the flower looked a beautiful blue. The second photo - definitely purple. I did my usual trick of putting on two pair of reading glasses to get the magnification right. If I do this and then stand on the other side of the room, sometimes I can focus. But then I have to go take a nap because getting up out of the chair and going across the room just wears me out! Darn, I left my walker by the couch.

"there can't be many things before your time"? ????? Just remember, Wolf, what goes around comes back around! And time doesn't move backward, so you just wait!!!!! LOL Then who will be the fossilized one? HMMM?

Well Pixy I am sure your last statement was very quip but I have no idea what it means. But it did make me laugh none the less.

If you and Lauren like I could send you both some calcium pills, at the age the two of you are reaching you cant be too careful!

Oh LOL!! Yet another symptom of advanced middle age! The un-understandable quip! I'm just warning you that you, too, will be of advanced middle years before you know it and all the 'young whippersnapper' remarks are going to come back to haunt you! Just keep your sense of humor and you'll be fine. I appreciate the offer of calcium pills. You are so thoughtful! But you'd better save them. If you are post-35, you aren't that far behind us.

By the way, I was looking over my dmails back to when you sent me the cuttings because I could not remember which species you had sent. I thought this was yet another memory lapse on my part, but, indeed, there was no reference to the species in the emails. Are they N. ventrata? (Did I spell that correctly? My feeble mind doesn't hold data for long these days.) I wish to label the little darlings before they get much bigger.

Ahh I get it now. Thank you for the clarification, I guess I should leave the smart remarks behind and respect my elders.

Yes maim they are N. ventrata (ventricosa X alata). I hope they are doing well for you.

Hey Pixie, it's definitely purple. Lighting can play tricks with the photos.

Calcium pills, how er uh thoughtful of you Wolf. Can I send you something in trade for those little anti-osteo pills?

Speaking of... how did Pixie put it... "un-understandable" quips, is anyone going to tell me what the Mulligan Stew comment meant?

I know we all type fast and I know that Wolf is at a disadvantage when he types (still can't figure out how he types at all from a car while steering) but when I read his "Yes maim" comment to Pixie I think I about fell off my chair. That was one of the funniest misspellings I have come across in a long time and the timing couldn't have been better. And then I thought.... hmmm... maybe it wasn't a misspelling and that made it all the funnier.

Yes do please continue to respect your elders- but never leave the smart opportunist remarks behind, ok? Life's too short to not take a shot here and there and it sure does add giggles to life amongst friends!

Driving and typing at the same time? What a talented fellow!
The cuttings are doing well, but I think I need to begin supplementing their light. They will do better if I can increase it. One of them is beginning to put up a pitcher, but it's taking a long time. Considering yesterday was the winter solstice, I'm surprised they've done this well for so long.
I have a nice Wardian case on a stand that I am going to clean up and fit with a little heat and a growlight. They should really love it in there!

Oh oh oh! I know what a Wardian case is! Those are beautiful!

Haha yes 'maim' was a misspelling. Spelling is by far one of my worst educational genres. Glad you got a good laugh out of it, atleast I didnt misspell D. capensis!

I am sure I can think of something you can send me in trade for the cali-pills. Hmm how bout some leg healing pills? Do they make those?

Pixy I am sure that they will grow quicker with more light and a lil more heat, but they prob will be fine without it. They may be slow untill it gets spring but they should manage if you dont want to go through the work needed to set up the case. Yes most of my internet time is during downtime at work, which means I am in my car, so it is slightly difficult somtimes to type so it can take me forever to get a paragraph out, all the while you and Lauren shot out books.

Wolf

Fresh out of leg healing pills but I'm sure I could find some Grecian Formula X as well as some Minoxidil Extra Strength Hair Regrowth gel for those latter years of middle age that will start creeping up on you. Tee he! You may be a few years behind us but it catches up with us all sooner or later.

News Flash! I just killed off all of one type of Pinguicula I had and I did it all by myself! Yup, I destroyed my native southeastern Pinguicula and some of them were hard to get my hands on. I repotted them all at the wrong time of year. I was going to improve their growing conditions by giving them fresh medium and I did em all in. Gets better, I didn't take any leaf pulls of those before I re-potted them. Sigh, I so hate it when I Jewish mother something to death.

Sorry to hear about your ping, stuff happens though. Although I am proud to say that only one plant has died in my possession before I was able to propagate and that was a N. northania that arrived in horrible condition.

Well, I'm not happy but not much I can do. You'd think I'd know to leave well enough alone by now but I guess I still need to get hit by the Mac Truck every once in a while to learn to look both ways before running across the street.

Gosh, Lauren, sorry about the pings. What kind were they? One of the Drosera I rescued from the cold died on me anyway, even though it looked like it was recovering. The other one doesn't look too hot either. I may lose it. I guess they are more delicate than I knew.

Careful out there with that typing and driving, Wolf. It gets harder to multitask well as you get further into middle age. One day you might be driving along typing slowly and just simply forget that you are in the car! Can't be too careful with this aging thing. Wouldn't want you to get into an accident.

The neps are perfectly healthy and doing fine, but I'm just anxious to see them get bigger. Plus I'm not using the wardian case at this time, so it's available.
Did you know that we have the Wardian case partly to blame for the over collecting of wild orchids around the world? Before the invention of this case, orchids were taken by the hundreds of thousands and sent back to, usually, England. Many of them didn't make the journey alive. After the invention of this little 'greenhouse', many more of them made it. If you haven't read it, the book The Orchid Thief (old brain not registering author's name) is an excellent read and very informative.

I will reserve comment on all the species that ended up, and continue to end up, overseas.

Oh let me see what did I kill off all by my little old self by repotting at the wrong time of year... are you sitting down? Get a hankie for this one- P. caerulea, planifolia, lutea, primuliflora, pumila (hard to get), and ionantha. Three are really dead and I already pitched them and the other three will be dead real soon. Phil told me how I killed them. They were doing fine until I ever so lovingly repotted them in fresh medium.

I think I have P. primulaflora. I will photograph it if you are interested in having some, during the right time of year to send, of course! I would have no idea what cultivar they are.

Awwww, thank you. The primuliflora would be one of the very few plants available locally and affordably. The cost to send it to me would actually be more than the cost of an entire plant around here. Sad though true but I really appreciate your offer. The two that are going to be sticklers for me are the ionantha (had been a gift) and the pumila. I think I can get some caerulea and lutea easily because I had grown quite a few from seed and given them away. If any of those people haven't killed off their plants, I can get one back. Silly me, I generally keep no seedlings of my own. Not bright considering what happened.

Come to think of it, the other thing that wasn't bright was not propagating them upon receipt. I should have taken a few leaf pulls. I couldn't bear to pull "body parts" off my plants.

I figured the primuliflora would be easy for you, but I like to share when I can. Hope you all have a very happy holiday season.

Well then I would love to have a Pixieprimuliflora... set one aside for me and sooner or later we'll be shipping something back and forth and I'll get it then. I'll stick a special stake on it with your name. I love to do that with plants. It's sort of neat to look at my plants and see people's names on some of them. It makes me think of the person who gave it to me.

That would be extremely fun, so will do!