African Violets

12 years ago

I have 6 pots of African violets that I started from one plant. They were all started from leaf cuttings. No two have the same blooms as the parent plant. The blooms are different colors and some multi colors. Can someone explain to me, how this happens when I used one plant for cuttings. I thought they would be clones, but I was wrong. Brandon if you answer this please keep simple as I only went to school a couple of days.

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Comments (5)

brandon7 TN_zone7
12 years ago
How different from the original plant are they, and how different are they from each other? And, is there anyone that's crazy enough to be playing an elaborate joke on you with your cuttings?
maternut
Original Author
12 years ago
No one has fooled with the plants. Difference, two are solid colors sort of close to the same color blue two others are blue and white like the parent but different shades of color. Two are about the same as parents. I have some solid pink started will be interesting to see how they turn out.
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brandon7 TN_zone7
12 years ago
Ahh, I bet the parent plant is a periclinal chimera (in this case, a result of cell mutation). This is pretty common in some two-tone african violets. The parent plant has two different types of cells (the "normal" ones and "mutant" ones). The periclinal chimera is what is responsible for the two colors in the flowers. Only one type of cell was present in some of the new plants.

When you said "different colors and some multi colors", in the OP, I was thinking something like pink or crimson flowers from a plant with blue flowers, and I was beginning to think someone was having a good laugh.
maternut
Original Author
12 years ago
Brandon I asked this question at another site and the lady gave the same answer. She called them chimera. Said the only way to get the same plant was split the plant. Leaves can vary. Could not be a mix up as I only started with one plant. Not enough room in my head to keep learning too much stuff like this. Getting too old.
brandon7 TN_zone7
12 years ago
A non-technical/generalized definition of a plant chimera is a plant with two different genetic types of cells (they have different DNA). This can arise when two individual plants are fused together, or, when a plant produces mutant cells that are reproduced along with the normal cells. This case is the later, where mutant plant cells are growing along with the normal ones.

The periclinal part describes how the cells are associated with each other. A periclinal chimera is where one genetic type of cell covers the other other type. Think of the the plant as having a skin of mutant cells. This can produce various results, but in this case it produces two-color flowers.

When you propagate a single leaf, the new plantlet grows from a single spot. It may not acquire the mutant skin like the parent plant has, or may only acquire that type of cell and not the normal cells. The plantlet is a clone, but it's a clone of only one type of the two types of cells found in the parent plant.

African Violets

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