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African Violets

Chimera Question - What the heck are they?

17 years ago

I've seen many chimeras for sale on eBay and other sites. After looking up the definition, I have a vague idea of what they are, but don't understand how they come about. I'm usually very good at understanding botanical concepts, but I can't wrap my mind around this one. I think they are a mutation but:

1. In order to produce one, does a regular violet send out a sucker that is one of these?

2. Or do they come from planting seeds?

3. Are they are variety all their own or are they a sport of a regular variety?

4. Do they originally come as a plant off a rooted leaf of a regular violet?

5. Can you have a regular violet and one day, a sucker blooms like one of these?

6. Can you force a regular violet to produce one?

If you can explain chimeras in language that I can understand, please help me out! :o)

Thanks,

Elaine

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Comments (5)

fred_hill
17 years ago
Hi Elaine,
Chimeras are basically violets which have produced a sport.
They generally are single AV's which have a very definite stripe to the blossom. In general they are a freakk of nature which is produced by a normal hybrid. Their gene makeup is such that they can only be produced by sucker or bloomstalk. A single leaf of a chimera will not produce a plantlet like the parent. As far as I know a violet cannot be forced to produce a chimera.
Fred in NJ
robitaillenancy1
17 years ago
Chimeras have two layers of cells in the production points, one of one color, then a second color or hue of the same color. Most plants have only one layer of cells.

Chimeras can be reproduced ONLY by suckers from a chimera plant or bloomstalks.

Seeds will not produce chimeras.

Chimeras are surprises and are produced sometimes from suckers of normal plants. You may also take a leaf from a normal plant and see it produce up to six babies. When those six babies are grown out to bloom, one may be a chimera. All a matter of Mother Nature taking over.

You can not force a violet to produce a chimera; in fact people are trying many ways to get these things to develop through tissue culture and other techniques with very little success.

One way you MAY be able to get chimeras is to have many, many plants--especially fantasy plants. I have discovered at least two chimeras in my growing room. One developed as a baby from a leaf of Ness' Midnight Fantasy. Buy a lot of fantasies and grow out to flowering every single baby. You may find one that way.

But they are getting less expensive on ebay. You could go that route, too.

Nancy
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vall3fam
Original Author
17 years ago
Thanks, Fred and Nancy. You have explained chimeras in a way I can finally understand what they are about.

One question has arisen from your comments: If a chimera has suckers, are all the suckers also chimeras? Or do some revert back to the original plant?

I find plant genetics fascinating. Thanks for feeding me with good info!

Elaine
bubbledragon
17 years ago
Not all of the suckers are chimeras from a chimera plant - this is often how a chimera will 'revert' I think. At my club meeting, the speaker brought a plant with about 5 heads that he showed us how to cut apart. He said it had previously been a chimera that reverted. Some of the 'babies' had different leaves, that he suspected may be still chimeric, but maybe not, as they didn't have blooms.
sgmd
17 years ago
lots of good info at Robert Albro's site ... check out his forum,
http://www.violetsandsuch.com/

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