Books/Articles on clematis pollen compatibility

16 years ago

Just curious if anyone out there has seen any books or articles that dealt with the compatibility of pollen from various clematis types? In all the books I have, there is no mention of this and so far attempts to google this information has not turned anything up useful. Specifically, what I am interested in is if there are pollen incompatibilities amongst the various types of clematis so that they can't be crossed. For example, can a montana accept the pollen from an integrifolia or can an integrifolia take the pollen from a montana? Also information on dominant traits would be interesting I think--as in brown eyes are dominant over blue eyes in humans. Just wondering if there was any information out there on this also since it would aid in deciding what plants to cross with other plants. Thanks for any information anyone has or has seen in cyberspace!

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Comments (2)

michael_in_chicago
16 years ago
Miguel, I asked that same question in the past few years for the same reasons. What I seem to remember was that the montanas and the atragenes don't seem to cross with the other types.

Grey-Wilson's subgenus Cheiropsis, section Montanae seems to be a closed loop in terms of crossing from what I've been able to find (the Hull database shows no crosses outside of it, though there are crosses within it, such as C. chrysocoma x C. montana var rubens).

Likewise, the his Atragene subgenus seems to be closed as well, crosses I can find only exist within it (fauriei x sibirica, etc.).

I've not troubled myself with some of the subgenuses since they're not hardy here (like Meclatis), but there are plenty of examples on the web, in the Hull database and in other places of crosses among the large Flammula and Viorna subgenera.

The Tubulosae subgenus crosses with itself, and there are successful crosses with the Flammula subgenus (x jouiniana is C. heracleifolia var. davidiana x C. vitalba, for example).

I have a large list of less obvious successfl crosses I've found evidence of (fusca x lanuginosa, for example). If you'd like the list, email me and I'll send it to you.

I think the person who told me about montanas and atragenes not crossing out of their own subgenus might have been Paul over in Gardenbuddies.

Let us know what crosses you do come up with, though!
nckvilledudes
Original Author
16 years ago
Michael thanks loads for the information. So far I have run across nothing like it. Will email you for the complete info. I have made tons of crosses this year but to be quite honest since I have things packed so close together the bees and other pollinators have probably done as much as me. Some plants are just loaded with seed--unlike anything I have seen in the past. Does this mean we are going to have a real winter this year? LOL Any way, Debbie at Silver Star Vinery is going to get the bulk of the seeds since she has far much more patience with raising clematis from seed than I will ever have. She and I have joked quite often, in fact just earlier this week joked via email, about us having children together! LOL Carol Lim is also getting some of my texensis seed since she liked the color of the flowers on the plant I have.

Thanks for the info you supplied and the offer of the additional information!
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Andy, pay no attention to that man behind the curtain..... ;-) There isn't anything formally written about which traits are dominant or recessive in broms. A lot of it you just have to learn by trial and error, but it certainly doesn't hurt to ask questions of those who have tried it. You can also use the FCBS databases for research, i.e. do a search for all hybrids with a certain seed parent or pollen parent to see what types of traits are passed on most often. I find that very helpful. A picture is worth a thousand words, and a thousand pictures....... well, you get the idea. Briefly, however: "big neo with small neo" - Larger generally dominates. Results usually fall somewhere between the two, but more often leaning towards the larger end, and sometimes can be even larger than either parent. I don't think I've ever seen an offspring smaller than either parent. "stoloniferous vs not stoloniferous" - Not stoloniferous tends to dominate, or at least pull the other one way back. Some stoloniferous species are better at passing the trait on than others, though, and it doesn't necessarily have anything to do with the comparative length of their stolons. "Do some traits tend to follow female vs male genetics?" Do you mean that certain traits would be more likely passed on by seed parent rather than pollen parent, or vice versa? Apart from variegation, I haven't found that to be the case. I've done a number of crosses both ways and the results have generally been pretty similar. If there is a size disparity, however, I find that it is often easier to use the smaller one as seed parent, just because of the relative size of the floral parts and the shorter distance the pollen has to travel to get to the ovary. Of course that one may not be as receptive to pollen as the other one, so if you're not sure, try it both ways just in case one doesn't work.
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Books/Articles on clematis pollen compatibility

Comments (2)

michael_in_chicago

nckvilledudes
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Books/Articles on clematis pollen compatibility

Comments (2)

michael_in_chicago

nckvilledudesOriginal Author

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nckvilledudes
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