anyone disagree..

Pieter · Post by **Pieter** » May 19, 2007 2:53 am

..this is Hyacinthina?

This is one of the four or five clumps I have around our little yard. This year I have found two new sports and obviously time will tell how well they'll do, plus I have a 3 year old one that seems to be settling into a nice medio variegated one.

Particularly in the shade, this one for me seems to go quite dark, almost a blackish green, which isn't what you see in this shot.

The pink thing sneaking in on the left is an out of focus Bleeding Heart.

One of the reasons I'm putting this up is because of the chatter there has been around Hyacinthina sports. If ultimately something such as Revolution is a sport of a sport of a sport of a sport from Hyacinthina, how much of the original should one expect to see in terms of characteristics? One of my Revolutions is sporting to a green form, and I deliberately say sporting rather than reverting because it bears no resemblance at all in leaf shape to what I'm used to seeing out of Hyacinthina. What I'm seeing out of this sport is a leaf shape that is more reminiscent of a form of sieboldiana rather than a Fortunei type: it's much more rounded and flat. Unfortunately I do not have a picture of it just now, but will post one sometime tomorrow once things dry out a little, it's pouring right now and it's close to midnight

renaldo75 · Post by **renaldo75** » May 19, 2007 3:09 am

Nice plant, Pieter.

I was just looking up the Hyacinthina to Revolution connection in the Hosta Handbook & several online resources. Not sure that there is a direct one.

Revolution is a sport of Loyalist which is a sport of Patriot which is a sport of Francee. Zilis lists no parentage for Francee - just says that it was developed by Minnie Klopping. The AHS online registry lists Francee as parentage unknown. But includes it in the Fortunei group. Hugo's Database lists Francee as a 'Fortunei' sport. So that makes it all clear as mud.

At any rate, the only thing that Revolution could revert to is Loyalist so if it throws green eyes then they'd be sports. I'll see if I can remember to get a pic of the green sport I divided off my Revolution last year.

Buckeye · Post by **Buckeye** » May 19, 2007 5:49 am

Your pic looks just like my Hyacinthinas. Jade Beauty is listed as an all green sport of Francee. Check out the one pic of it at the Hosta Library and compare it to your Revolution sport. That picture shows a rounded leaf. I picked up a Jade Beauty cheap last fall because it was showing an interesting sport. As soon as it unfurls a little more, I will post a pic of it for comparison.

Pieter · Post by **Pieter** » May 19, 2007 10:32 am

Thanks for piping in guys. I just took a peek at 'Jade Beauty' in the HL like you suggested Buckeye and that sure bears a close resemblance to what I'm seeing on that 'Revolution'. If it stays dry enough for a few minutes this morning I'll take a shot of it and post it here.

Guess what I'm curious about is how much variation/difference/change can one expect to see when comparing a 4th or 5th descendant sport to the original it is supposed to have come from? Is a noticeable change in leaf shape not uncommon? Looking at this Revolution sport and comparing it against the other leaves off the same crown you really do wonder. Or how about the difference in fertility, my Hyacinthinas hardly set any seed at all whereas my R's last year were very prolific and I have a lot of seed sprouting where it was the pod parent. Just for fun I've include this picture:

Pieter · Post by **Pieter** » May 19, 2007 11:44 am

So, here we go. As you can see, there was plenty of that wet stuff.....

Just below the leaf there is a small Platinum Tiara and a Feather Boa. Both will get lifted and moved today, they're just too shaded for good growth. These are all in my 'Hosta Nursery' holding planter and lots of things are getting too big for it, so today's the day for a lot of moving and dividing, including the Revolution we're talking about here.

renaldo75 · Post by **renaldo75** » May 19, 2007 12:55 pm

I went out to get some pics of my green Revolution sport & ended up taking pics of the entire bed it's in.

Thanks a lot, Pieter!!

Pieter · Post by **Pieter** » May 20, 2007 9:55 am

I went out to get some pics of my green Revolution sport & ended up taking pics of the entire bed it's in. Thanks a lot, Pieter!!

Hey, you're welcome Ren, it was my pleasure

but I had to crawl into the spirea bushes & site thru the viewfinder to get this perspective ;O) LOL

That's one of the major reasons for my choice when I bought my Olympus C5050 4 years ago: I wanted a hi-rez camera with an LCD screen you could angle so you can do easy shots either way down low or overhead and see what you're doing...and boy, do I appreciate that. My next digital camera will be a DSLR and it will have to have a tilting LCD screen or it doesn't make the cut when making my decision, it's a feature I couldn't do without now that I've lived with it for 4 years.

renaldo75 · Post by **renaldo75** » May 20, 2007 11:12 am

Well fine!! Be that way!!

I'm still on my first digital Canon Powershot A10 with all of 1.3 megapixels.

And that won't be changing anytime soon. So I'll still be crouching in the bushes for some pics in the foreseeable future.