Xuan,

I call that one beautiful!! You are so fortunate to find such beautiful flowers. You always seem to find such treasures!

I find this one beautiful too! The 3 white long central stripes surrounded by the fine ones...What a neat trait to try to breed with a solid color one...! I wonder if what you are finding are home bred ones or ones that have come about naturally in the fields? With the warm climate it seems like a real possiblity to me. Or perhaps someone there has their own breeding program, so the flowers are not the same ones that we find in our markets here! What ever, you are so fortunate to have these to enjoy and thank you so much for sharing them with us!

liza, I don't think anyone here has a "breeding program" for amaryllis yet... maybe I will be one in the near future LOL! So I'm certain this one is a "natural beauty"!
I'm glad you folks like it.

Xuan

Yep, that is a pretty one alright. :)

I like it, too! The petal shape and colors are just wonderful! You definitely do find some great little treasures!

Ebay has a few very different looking hippeastrum bulbs and species offered every once in a while from a subtropical country that I can't remember... so, either someone is growing them and crossing them... or they are finding them and cultivating them... I couldn't guess...

But, if no one else is breeding them that you know of... you really could start a program and breed hippeastrum, Xuan! Wouldn't that be exciting! And who knows? You could come up with something completely different! :-)

It looks like a hybrid of older history, a "heirloom" hybrid. It is beautiful! It should be a TET and set seeds after selfing, and I assume that you can obtain a wide spectrum of totally striped to unicolor (red) in the progeny!

Hans, do tell me more. I thought the distinct variations in flowers come only with cross pollinating. You mean to say selfing of same plant will also create variations?? This is too exciting to me!!!!

Oh by the way-re: the Charisma x Misty Trumpet seed pods. It appears that one of the pods is sadly aborting. I am still hopeful at this point for the 2nd pod. Do you think there is any chance to get anything from the immature aborted pod if I were to just plant the whole thing? Have you ever done anything like that? I told you I was crazy! lol

If you have a primary hybrid (let's say a hybrid of two totally different looking species hippeastrums) - and you self pollinate this totally heterozygous hybrid then you will obtain all possible kinds of intermediates between the grandparents. However, it has to admitted that the probability for "intermediates looks similar to the parent" is bigger. The probability of obtaining some siblings which do look exactly like the grandpartents is the lowest, and due to the rather large chromosome number of 22 (DIPs) and 44 (TETs) respectively it is extremely low.
Indeed the spectrum of phenotypes is still more extended when two heterozygous hybrids are crossed. That is correct.

An immature pod will not give you any satisfaction Cindee. When you see a pod that is aborting, open yourself for the thought that this occurs for reasons. It informs you that the seed initials have signalled to the periphery not to supply them any more. These seeds simply don't want to live furthermore!
I heared about "embryo rescueing" - but, since we do not have the equipment at home, and, while there are so many occasions to do the thing (and let it do, respectively) naturally I was never interested in "bludgeoning the nature".
Admittedly I would like to constrain the nature in one concrete breeding target, that is
H.papilio (= DIP) x TETs
You know that out of many seed pods I received but some few seeds. I am talking about viable seeds well understood *Lol* And, still I do continue and I pollinate every single flower of my rather large plantation of Papilio's which includes at least 14 bloomable bulbs presently)
But the adequate approach to the problem would be to generate a tetraploid Papilio by colchizine treatment which could be unlimitedly crossbred with other TETs.

As to your breeding attempt - simply try repeatedly in the other direction and pollinate your (Mama in spe) "Misty" with pollen from "Charisma" - you might remember that Lora succeeded with
"Appleblossom" x "Pink Floyd" (TET x DIP too)
so do not give up and do not regard the fate of the one single seed pod which you are holding in your hands now to seriously!

Oh boy.... I didn't know that I've found a 'treasure'! Wow... so what am I going to do now?
Thanks very much Sir Hans for the education! (By the way, what does TET stand for?)

Xuan (keep on looking for more hippies!)

Oh my God Hans, you are so knowledgeable. I would love to sit with you over a glass (bottle) of wine and just listen to you talk! You have a plethora of info bumping around in your brain and I am so amazed. Thanks for both your sharing and your encouragement. Unfortunately I have no more blooms to cross with Misty. Right now she is cooking 2 seed pods. One with Sumatra pollen and the other with Zombie. Again, thanks for all your brain food!

Xuan, there are 3 (I think) different 'breeds'(?) of Hippis. They are TETraploid, DIPloid and another I can't remember. Elizabeth was doing a collection of which is what Ploid last year and I really have to go back and study it. They would be like mixing orchids with daisy pollen as I understand. Yet, there have been successful measures by some. That is why I run my pollens from plant to plant...just in case I get lucky. Last year, I tried to pollinate my Exotic Star with Red Lion. All the seeds were chaf - the papery outer coating. Yet, one I sent to Maria seemed to have a seed and it is (was) a seedling last I checked. It couldn't be in better hands!! Hans can perhaps enlighten us a little on the Ploid issue. It is all a mystery to me.

There was a useful post on ploids a year back in the forum. I happened on it as I'm in the process of reading old posts for useful information :)

old post on ploids

A post in the daylily FAQ here at garden web also briefly discusses it:

general ploid information

From what I understand of it, the prefix indicates the number of complete chromosome sets (so the number of complete sets of genetic information).

I wonder what an octoploid Hippeastrum would look like if they could produce one? (Google shows that scientists created octoploid strawberries that were fertile. Interesting stuff!) Urm, sorry for the Off Topicness there. :)

Happy growing,

Liltika

Hans is to Hippeastrums what Larry is to dogs... you would all be shocked to learn that my husband not only understands all this, but can put it all into play...

After more than 25 years breeding dogs, he gets the homozygous/heterozygous, phenotype/genotype, and all the other technological terms used therein... which, I suppose, is why he is such a successful breeder.

I understand it all, to a certain degree, when it's there in front of me, or is explained to me... but I forget most of it by the time the conversation is over... the memory isn't what it used to be!

But I do agree with Sir Hans that pods abort for reasons only Mother Nature is privy to, and we should allow Her to do Her work as She sees fit. In other words, there was probably something wrong with the seeds forming within the pod... just as in puppies, defects happen, and they are either stillborn or aborted while in the early stages of development. It all keeps the gene pool strong.

I'm still learning about Ploidy, but I do understand the basics... I'm in the process of making lists of which varieties are what... Diploid, Tetraploid... so I know who to breed to who!!

Jodi, I'm waiting for your list to know 'who to breed to who'. That'd be much easier for a 'foreigner' (both in a sense of language as well as of amaryllis) like me!
For the one in the picture, should I self-pollinate it like Sir Hans said above?

Xuan

Yeah, in fact that is what Sir Hans does suggest. *Lol*
On the other hand - I would collect its pollen and dust trumpet shaped knight star lilies like Amputo, Germa (yellow), Misty, Pink Floyd, Santa Fe, Striped Panther and H. x johnsonii. But that is a question of personal taste - trumpets are my favorites. As private gardener with limited space it is wise to focuse on daintier cultivars.
If you cross with these space consuming TETs then you will obtain progeny which looks similar to already existing "material".
However, IF you have "Baby Star" (a very dainty commercial TET) then I would cross in either direction. While it is very uncertain whether you succeed in crossbreeding your unnnamed hippie with trumpets (DIPs) you should be fortunate with Baby Star.

Sir Hans, I can see why you only concentrate on certain breedings with certain species and other hippis... it can get way out of hand, space-wise! I don't have room to grow hundreds of seedlings to adulthood, and will have to pick and choose what I keep...

I just received a gift of a Sprekelia, and will be trying to breed that when it flowers for me... I understand it's possible, and will keep trying... I like the trumpet varieties, too... and many of the smaller flowered varieties. I'm starting to re-think what I will collect for breeding, and which I'll grow just for beauty... I'm already running out of room!

Jodi, I had Sprekelia self pollinate easily for me last year. However, the little seedlings are incredibly fragile, very thin, grass like reeds. I lost them all to drowining in the rain. I would suggest you keep the seedlings indoors or sheltered so that you can hand water or mist when they are small.

I have a nice indoor set-up for seed starting... a mini-greenhouse with grow lights and heat mats... and I have a separate heater running at that end of the apartment to make sure the ambient temperature stays warm, and I keep the plastic flap tied up to keep air flow going... so far so good! I've got some Limona seeds floating, and many have tiny little roots poking down into the water! As soon as I think they're ready, I'll plant them... then, I'll start another batch from a different variety...

When my Sprekelia blooms, I hope to try both selfing it and applying other pollen from hippeastrums... just maybe I'll get lucky!