Violetval - as Mark mentioned - chimeras are not the most stable plants and if it sports, it is probably makes a good gift to the friends, no sense to hold to it. The good way to keep it true - is to harvest and root the suckers, Emerald City chimera (do not remember what is chimera and what is original plant - Emerald City or Emerald Love) - suckers pretty often for me. To rejuvenate the old plant you can take the crown off - and root it, the stump will give you chimera suckers if you keep it alive. There is a loss of vigor when the plant gets old - it can be a reason why it sported, second - if you do not repot it every 6 months - soil gets too acid - and here we go. If I see that the top starts blooming wrong - I would cut the top off - and let the suckers grow from under the older leaves - the ones that bloomed thue. The Chimera blossoms are tied to the way the tissue in a main stem is organised - it should be concentric circles of dark and light colored cells. If one of type of cells peters out with growth - you get solid color blooms, but the bottom of the stem is still organized properly - so the suckers will come true. Irina

Fred. My 'Funambule' bloomed just like that last month, after it took like a 4 month 'rest'. I think it needed more light,because I moved it and it took off growing then blooming. The blooms also range on it from nearly all blue with tiny specks of white, to that great blue with big streaks of white like in your picture. And my one 'oldest' Rainbows Quite Riot looks just about like your Funambule picture everytime it blooms, which is nearly non stop. But all the other are blooming nearly all blue with only tiny specks of white. I have found that it depends on how hot/cool and how much sun the plant gets, changes the amount of white and blue fantasy mix. Which is odd to me. Because now that it is summer they get a lot of light and now they all bloom nearly all blue. Yet in the winter, with less light, they all bloom , but usually I get a lot more fantasy mix on the blooms. The Funambule is the opposite. I get less fantasy on the blooms in the summer, and more in the winter and spring. But I thought they might be unstable crosses. But if yours is blooming like that all the time. I have some kind of odd ball plants, unless you grow under lights? Mine are all getting natural light.

TGIF, by the way... DH is getting out of the hospital tomorrow - now part of his aorta is made of Teflon. Yukako is absolutely unique. It is a very stable chimera, it doesn't turn blue.Plus it is an easy hardy plant. If you root the suckers - you get true Yukako, another chimera with green stripes on white and another chimera with dark blue stripes on light blue petals - you really need to look - otherwise it not evident. More of it - it is a chimera - that sometimes gives you a chimera from the leaf. It holds the flowers for long long time - lots of AVs with green flowers do - and IMHO - even if you grow small amount of AVs - it should be one of them. I.

Don't worry about the fact that some of your plants are not growing, they will grow when they are ready. You are not necessarily doing anything wrong and often times the plants are just waiting for the right time to grow. I have some cuttings that have done absolutely nothing in over a year. Sometimes you can recut the cutting and root it in the pot with the other piece and that will get things going but do it in the spring for best results. Many Hoya pubicalyx plants have dark maroon vines although fewer have this colouration in the new leaves. As for genetics a plant either has a certain gene or it doesn't, there is no turning on and off of genes the way you are thinking. Gene expression is of course different again because an organism can have a certain gene but not show it outwardly. I am not familiar with Hoya genetics but perhaps with an internet search you can find some info but it will only be on the horticulturally significant varieties, not much of this research going on just for curiosities sake. The word Chimera has been attached to this Hoya pubicalyx because of the unusual and unstable distribution of pigment in the flowers. All flowers on the plant can possibly show this effect but it is not predictable. If you notice that there is a pattern please let us know. The gene can of course also affect the new growth like you have been seeing and that explains why it is also showing up unpredictably. Mike