Pic of the Day--Elegans, or whatever

[Tigger]

I believe George Schmid's conclusion is that 'Elegans' is a seed strain (although there may be some consistent clonal forms out there) arising from crossing a H. montana ("Hosta Fortunei Robusta?") with a 'Tokudama' form (originally believed to be a separate species, but demoted by the time of Schmid's publication of The Genus Hosta. H. sieboldiana is now thought to be nothing more than off-type (non-blue, variable form) seedlings from the 'Elegans' strain, with no wild population matching the established "type" for "sieboldiana," so now any plain Jane seedling from 'Elegans' (or 'Great Expectations' or 'Borwick Beauty' or 'Frances Williams' 'Grey Cole', etc.) could just be called a "sieboldiana-type" as there's not even enough consistency to even grant it a 'Sieboldiana' cultivar name. I don't have my copies of The Hosta Journal here, but I think this was laid to rest last year.

Very confusing in the transition, but ultimately it simplifies life. 'Elegans' is just 'Elegans'.

[ViolaAnn]

Interesting discussions on what the real name is of this beauty. And that carries over into the links I could find as well. (I've since moved those links into the first post.)