Late last fall we learned some unfortunate news about our toad lilies and several varieties of toad lilies in general. It seems that there is a virus infecting different varieties of Tricyrtis and some have even been named for the flower discoloration caused by the virus.
I have posted an article on our website about the virus so you can see how we learned about it. Plants that we had been very excited to grow, such as Tricyrtis 'Raspberry Mousse', 'Empress', and 'Dark Beauty' all appear to get their mottled flower coloring from a virus.
We will be working hard to remove the virused plants and continue testing our toad lilies and any new toad lilies we purchase for viruses in an effort to get a clean supply.
Once again this is an example of people finding unique plants, thinking it is a sport or a seedling and then naming them, even though it was really a virus.
That's very interesting Chris and you wrote a great article, thanks for the info. Did you contact Terra Nova with the results from the testing by Dr. Lockhart? How did they respond?
Yes, I had a chance to talk to Dan Heims when I visited last November. He acknowledged that they only virus index for 20 common viruses so it would be possible for the plants to have a different virus not included in the tests.
The only other thing he mentioned was that he had thought the purple spotting was more uniform on 'Empress' than you would see from a virus. So we walked over to the TC plugs of 'Empress' and noted how some plants had absolutely no purple mottling while others were extremely purple. He said they would try to run some more virus tests so try and clean up the stock. I haven't had a chance to talk with him since, but it would be nice if they could do some tests from there to help verify what we are seeing.
As a nursery it is important for us to avoid having any plants around that have viruses, but I'm not sure how dangerous it would be to have this in the home garden. If we had a better idea about what virus this is then we would better know how it spreads, but since it did manage to spread over a distance my guess would be that we are looking at a pollen or aphid spread virus.
There really isn't much information about this out there. I wrote to the editors of American Nurseryman about submitting an article to them but haven't heard back.
Looks like I have it in my plants, as I ordered from you last year. Don't know how long it will take to spread through my original plants but since distance doesn't seem to have made a difference in the spread, and mine are sometimes much closer than 20' apart, I'll just have ot wait and see what shows up this year.
Thanks for catching this, Chris, and for doing such and excellent and thorough job of reporting to us!
Bottom line- is it hurting the plants? Since some varieties seem to be immune, this virus won't affect all flowers.
But we'll have a hard time with the ones that will have varying amounts of spots and blotchiness. Excect maybe for the foliage or plant habit, how will we know what we have? We will have a well established variety that is suddenly showing a new hybrid, just cause it has the virus!
Well, this may take a while to clean up. Do I destroy all/most of my plants? I don't have access to the kind of lab testing this situation may entail! Advice?
You won't see any change in vigor, there won't be any bad looking foliage, just the flowers will be different in some varieties.
I believe this virus is spread by aphids (the two possible viruses spread this way). If you don't have aphids then chances are it hasn't spread. Ours took over 2 years to spread, and we are talking about very large colonies growing fairly close together.
Dark Beauty and Empress seem to be named for the virus, so those will always have it. Lightning Strike doesn't show any change in flower colors but can carry the virus. Maculata might change flower color depending on the amount of virus in the plants. If it always looks normal then it probably isn't virused. White Towers won't ever show symptoms because the flowers are pure white and don't contain any purple pigments that would be triggered by the virus. I don't know if Tricolor can catch it yet as we haven't had them tested. But this is a different species so like Hatatogisa may or may not catch it.
The bottom line is that most toad lilies in cultivation seem to be virused. I've heard whispers of this over the years but always thought you would see it in the foliage - never thought it would be in the flowers!
So what do you do? Well, if you are worried about the virus affecting other toad lilies then definitely throw them away. After we get more testing done and get a whole new line of virus free plants going we can replace them for you.
I bet that a lot of people will keep their plants. As a nursery we have no choice but destroy them, but I'm sure you will still see these varieties on the market for a long, long time.
I'm really sorry about this. Wish I had known what I was getting into before growing so many plants, but this does seem to explain why some of the largest wholesale growers keep only a limited number of varieties in production...
I just joined today and I love toadlilies. I was about to order 3-4 different kinds when I learned of the virus. My understanding of the virus after reading your article is that it doesn't cause the plant to have less vigor, the leaves look the same, and the thing we will notice is that the flowers will have more purple mottling. Does it cause the plants to die quickly, or is it too soon to know at this stage? I'm just wondering if I get some plants with the virus how important it is to destroy them.
The plants will not die. Plants don't die from viruses. Actually, if they did, then plant viruses would pretty much be wiped out after a while, which would be a good thing.
If you have a collection of toad lilies then I think it is important to destroy the virused plants as soon as you find out. If they are dormant don't worry because the virus is dormant now too. If these are the only toad lilies you have then there isn't much of a threat, but then again, I don't really know how this virus might affect other plants since we aren't 100% sure which virus this is, or if it is more than one virus.
I believe the virus has been around for a very long time. Unfortunately when wholesalers start to select and propagate plants because of the look they get soley because they are diseased it has the result of spreading the virus a lot faster.
Personally, if I was just a home gardener, I would not worry about this too much. As a nurseryman, though, it is my job to make sure we sell virus free plants, so this information is a lot more important to other nurserymen.
I hope that helps to answer your questions, and welcome to the forums!
Yikes! I hadn't heard about toadie viruses before. So, are you saying that ALL Empress and Dark Beauty toadies carry the virus? I have both, and I'm also babysitting about a dozen tricyrtis for KellieD that she got from Heronswood, including Dark Beauty and Empress.
Well, kudos to you for recognizing the problem and trying to take care of it quickly. I sure wish some of our retail nurseries around here would do the same! I've had nurseries tell me that I was crazy and that I didn't know what I was talking about when I pointed out very easy to spot plants with Hosta virus X.
Hmm... here are some close up photos of my Empress and Dark Beauty. It looks like Empress has some irregular purple spotting, but I don't see any on the Dark Beauty that look like your infected ones.
My Dark Beauty always show splashes/splotches of darker color on some of the flowers here but not on every one. Without testing other sources it would be hard to say that they are ALL infected, but it was my understanding that the name was given because of the dark spots that appear on the flowers. It is hard to know for sure. The same with Empress, but none of our flowers changed color until after we introduced Empress so for us I believe that was the source of the virus.
I do know that the darker mottling toad lilies is a virus when you see it and I am certain that ALL Raspberry Mousse are virused. We bought Empress a year after it was introduced and Raspberry Mousse was found a year before we found our identically colored plant. Looks suspicious to me.
I sure hope that someplace like Terra Nova does further testing to find out for sure. I would love to have Empress that did not have a virus, if that is possible!
When you have a large collection of plants it is very tough to decide what to do. Chances are there are so many virused plants out there and so many nurseries that are NOT screening there plants that we may never get virus free plants. So then you almost have to make the decision whether to grow toad lilies or not at all.
Wow......I went looking at my pictures, and I did find 2 that had what you discribe.....but none of all my other pictures did.....I am pretty sure that it was on the one I have had the longest, too...but I will be on the look out now....Sad!
So Chris, if I'm reading this correctly you purchased from other places other than TNN and were these plants okay? I'm just trying to get all the facts straight.
Yes, I have purchased from places other than Terra Nova. No, some of the other plants were virused too.
Raspberry Mousse was purchased from Darwin Plants and arrived virused. As I said, this appears to be identical to the virus infected hirta so I am confident this variety was specifically selected, named, and even patented based on the fact that the coloration was caused by a virus.
Dark Beauty was purchased from Darwin Plants and although I had it for 2 years before testing it had been growing over 300 feet away from the others so I think these were already infected. But our Dark Beauty has always had mottled flowers. It could be possible that we simply had a batch of virus infected plants of this one and that others exist that are not virused.
Maculata was purchased from Bluestone and was not virused until after I introduced Empress from Terra Nova.
Hirta was in my garden for years and was not virused until after I introduced Empress and Lightning Strike (Lightning Strike was from Terra Nova).
Blue Wonder was purchased from DeVroomen and arrived virused.
Like I said, I encourage wholesalers like Terra Nova to have their plants tested independently to confirm my findings. I would love to find out that there really are some of these plants that do NOT have the virus so that we can continue to grow them.
Thanks Chris, like I stated I'm just trying to get my facts all lined up as some of you know Mosaic virus is one of the big concerns we Brugmansia grower worry about. I am glad you had your plants tested and you express your concerns to TNN. We are seeing more virus being passed around due to a lack of testing and quarantine of new plants when they arrive. I can't stress this even to a homeowner, even if you know who you are getting your plant from. These things happen and we all need to be on the watch for this.
Really appreictae the info! Trycirtis are one of my favorite shade plants and I had intended to add new varieties to the new garden. I think I will stick with divisions of the two I have and just enjoy them until this is all straightened out in the future. Kudos to you for recognizing a problem and taking action on it!! Not every nursery would do this. I think it builds trust in your clinetele.
~ Mike
“Be who you are and say what you feel because those who mind don’t
matter and those who matter don’t mind.” - Theodore Geisel, aka Dr.
Seuss
Ohh Chris
Once again I see you in front of the virus battle. You are just doing so good in informing us about matters that other nursery people ( around here at least ) would keep a professional silence
HUGS
Bad thing.. it do look lovely
Against stupidity the gods themselves struggle in vain.
E-mail for pics hostapics@gmail.com
It seems that the virus might be pretty specific to just toad lilies, and after researching and talking to others it also seems that the virus has been in a lot of toad lilies all along... Most people that I talk to don't have plans to remove or destroy their toad lilies and even more people say that they still want more of them. Plants like Lightning Strike, Tricyrtis hirta Alba, Empress, and others are resistant to the virus and look perfectly normal and grow just fine.
Personally, if I had these in my garden I don't think I would keep them since I love them so much. But being a nursery I really can't sell virused plants. As a gardener you will want to make a decision of your own.
