Lakeside Missy Little - lost margins

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sweetee
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USDA Zone: 5

Lakeside Missy Little - lost margins

Post by sweetee »

Hi, Anyone have any idea why my hosta is losing it's margin? It started out well. This was a tissue culture and it had all margins last year. Thanks!

Registry - http://www.hostaregistrar.org/detail.ph ... y%20Little

MyHostas - http://myhostas.be/db/hostas/Lakeside+Missy+Little

Hosta Library - http://www.hostalibrary.org/l/missylittle.html
missylittle2.jpg
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jgh
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Re: Missy Little lost margins

Post by jgh »

I don't think your plant is losing its margins... rather, I think you have one vigorous eye that sported to solid, and several eyes with margins. Since the solid sport looks more vigorous than the rest, I'd probably divide it off right now - removing the eye and that part of the crown. Easiest is to dig the whole thing, wash off the roots, and divide... least disruptive to the plant is cutting off that part right in the ground... Your call...
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sweetee
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Re: Missy Little lost margins

Post by sweetee »

Thanks! I was beginning to wonder if it reverted. Because of limited space, almost all of my hostas are container grown, so no problem digging, lifting, cutting. I know you're right, because I separated the leaves today and sure enough, one eye is solid, the rest still have the margins. Anyone know which hosta the solid one is reverting to? I'm so glad I found this hosta forum. Been growing hostas for 7 years and I'm realizing how little I know. I should have looked for this forum sooner. Thanks again!
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Chris_W
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Re: Missy Little lost margins

Post by Chris_W »

Hi Sweetee,

I was thinking the same thing, that some eyes have a margin but that one big one looks solid blue. That margin must lighten quite a bit as the season progresses. Great time to separate it right now.
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jgh
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Re: Missy Little lost margins

Post by jgh »

Get a cup of coffee, sweetee... it's Sunday morning and I'm launching into one of my sermons...

I'm unfamiliar with this hosta, so I went to my trusty Hostapedia...

H. 'Lakeside Missy Little' registered by Mary Chastain 2002, "parentage unknown"

First of all, I never use the term reversion... been fighting a lonely battle against that word for years. I think it leads to sloppy thinking. Any time a variegated hosta throws a solid sport, people tend to use the dreaded 'R' word.

If a solid plant throws a variegated sport, it is certainly possible that when it is divided, there is still some of the original solid plant tissue in the crown and that it might later show up as a solid eye on an otherwise variegated plant. I can understand calling that a "reversion" - though I continue to maintain that one would have to do a DNA test to prove it isn't actually a new solid colored mutation rather than a genetic clone of the original solid parent.

But as to your LML - it is probably a stabilized form of a streaky seedling from Mary's extensive breeding program - if it was a sport from a solid plant, Mary would probably know that and would have included the info. in the registration. In any case, there is no solid plant to "revert" to.

I do save sports like this... I move them someplace and label them "Sport of H. '..." Sometimes they will show some specific traits that make them desireable. For example, the whole Patriot-Minuteman-Paul Revere-etc. family tends to throw solid eyes. The solid from Paul Revere has been named Midnight Ride - a really good plant to put someplace where you have some room and where you want a fast-growing dark green hosta. And if you look back a little on the forum, you'll see a posting I did on the solid green sport from Jane Ward that has been named Lady Jane - worth growing just for its remarkable flower bud...

So... Midnight Ride isn't a "reversion" - but it does seem that the hosta community has decided it is ok to label all solid dark green sports from Paul Revere as Midnight Ride and sell them as such.

People frequently remove solid blue sports from June and the family and call them Halcyon on the assumption that any solid blue coming out of that group is a "reversion" to Halcyon, since June developed as a sport from Halcyon. (This, of course, is a good example of why I don't use the term reversion... how in the heck, when we know that June also sports to tetraploids like Touch of Class and plants of various sizes and traits... that the solid sport isn't actually similar to Halcyon, but different in some ways?)

So - your solid sport probably doesn't have a name - none that I know of anyway. I'd keep it, grow it on... and if it is reasonably attractive, your can use it as a gift for somebody special... give it a "use" name like H. "My Pal Ron" or somesuch. (Note the double quotation marks... official cultivar names have single 'xxx' so when I make up a use [unregistered] I use the unofficial double quotes to indicate it is a non-registered made up name...) People seem thrilled with these "vanity hostas" and as long as you are clear with them, its unlikely they will create any disruption in the retail hosta world.

By the way... I think this is a first publication... I have a margined sport from H. 'Garnet Prince' that I have decided to register as H. 'Polish Prince.' I also have one under consideration as H. 'St. Joan.' Hands off on those names! Our dear friends the Wilebskis deserve vanity hostas that are special and actually registered!
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sweetee
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Re: Missy Little lost margins

Post by sweetee »

Aaaah ... Well, thanks for that reply. I'm breaking some old habits here. I'm a hosta addict in the summer and an aroid addict in the winter. It's very common to have a variegated aroid revert, not throw a sport off, so I'm just using a word that's become habit to me. Time to break this habit. Thanks for clearing that up. I know if I had a blue plant and it put out a nice variegated eye, I most certainly wouldn't call it a reversion, I'd call it luck. Name the hosta some wacky name, and see what happens.

Thanks for that viewpoint. I haven't removed it yet, but will this week, and of course, I'll be saving it. Now, if only I could get my Revolution, to stop throwing out sports. I finally dug it from the ground and put it in a pot, just so I don't have to dig it up one more time, only to cut off half of the plant every year. :lol:

Thanks again!
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jgh
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Re: Missy Little lost margins

Post by jgh »

Oh, sweetee... you don't have to break your habit. Most hosta folks will call a lot of things reversions - as I said, it is a lonely battle I'm fighting here. But for sure you can't call a hosta a reversion if there is no solid in the past that the plant mutated to variegated from.

Good example in the current thread on Royal Tiara. It has a light center on a green plant. Zilis originally noted is as coming from tissue culturing the flower scape of Gold Scepter. The registrastion somehow ended up listing Jade Scepter as parent. Now Zilis says his nursery was propagating Gold Edger at the same time, and he thinks this plant came from tc of that plant.

Now it gets interesting. Royal Tiara is not yellow, like Gold Edger. It is green and cream/white. It frequently sports to solid eyes. If the eyes are chartreuse, they are called Royal Charm or ... something else (in the Hostapedia)... but oddly enough, they also named the solid yellow sport Paradise Goldheart... So in this case, they don't even call the all-yellow plant that probably looks an awful lot like Gold Edger a reversion...

I don't know about aroid genetics - perhaps all of them have solid colored "parents." In hostas, with the instability of the genes, many of the variegated plants don't have a solid parent in their past at all - they are mixed-gene seedlings from an unstable (streaked) pod parent... nothing there to "revert" to.

So go ahead and call things like a blue sport on June a reversion to Halcyon... seems like everybody else does. I don't like it, but most folks will continue to use the 'R' word!
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sweetee
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Re: Missy Little lost margins

Post by sweetee »

Okay, then we'll just walk around the "R' word a little bit. I could always plead ignorance, something like; I've got these blue leaves growing out of my plant, maybe it's hvx, or maybe I should rush out and register the plant.
As I say; I have the mind of a scientist, but the intellect of a moron. :)
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redcrx
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Re: Missy Little lost margins

Post by redcrx »

Here is my Lakeside Little Missy this season.
Attachments
Lakeside Missy Little - April 13, 2012
Lakeside Missy Little - April 13, 2012
Lakeside Missy Little - August 9, 2012
Lakeside Missy Little - August 9, 2012
Lakeside Missy Little - August 16, 2012
Lakeside Missy Little - August 16, 2012
Lakeside Missy Little - August 16, 2012
Lakeside Missy Little - August 16, 2012
Ed McHugh, Sicklerville NJ
ImageMockingbird feeding juvenile yellow raisons - never leave home without them.
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