Can hosta flower colors sport or change in tissue culture?

[Chris_W]

We always assume that when a hosta sports the flowers should always be identical. We also assume that in tissue culture the flower color should remain true for each clone. I started questioning that when a topic came up about the flower color on Love Pat. I noticed that all of my TC babies of Love Pat have a slightly darker lavender than I expected. Someone mentioned it should be near white, but then people were comparing flowers and some had light lavender, others pretty much white, but mine were a medium lavender. I think we all chalked it up to soil/growing conditions.

Well, I was looking at my ruffled Blue Mouse Ears yesterday and one plant shocked the heck out of me. ONE plant of the three has darker purple flowers on it. The pattern is the same, scape height the same, but it is darker purple than the other two. All 3 were dug a month or so ago, had the soil rinsed off, were potted up in the same size pots and same potting soil and watered all the same, yet one of the 3 has distinctly darker flowers

I then decided to check the rest of our regular Blue Mouse Ears - we have several rows still in the ground, one really old one in the display garden, several in the nursery, and a couple hundred more in our production area, several with flowers. Out of all of these, ONE other plant has darker flowers!

Here is a comparison with me holding a regular flower scape from another plant.

The next step would be for me to watch these darker flowering plants, maybe move them to the garden and let them grow on their own to see if the flowers are still darker next year in different soil conditions. If this trait continues next season then I think it could be safe to say that it may be possible for flowers to sport slightly. I still don't believe that they can sport to totally different patterns, colors, bloom times, height, size, etc., all at the same time, but it looks like subtle changes are possible!

[kHT]

Chris, I have been playing/testing tissue culture plants that have been obtained from TNN and let me tell you
anything is possible from sports to changing colors of blooms. We are now on the 5th year of this and find these
plants a better quality, will take more cold than the normal plant and you can and will find changes. Our TNN
reverse variegated Brugmansia throws off sports that range from solids to albinos from different variegation patterns
to blooms that range from the same to darker in color, just depends on what is cut. Give me a tissue culture plant
any day as these will take the colder temps and are healthier species by far.

[dhaven]

A sport is a sport is a sport. Also known as a rose by any other name is still not a hosta.

Seriously, any change in a plant, from the roots to the leaves, can mutate slightly or greatly, producing a sport. Most sports are based on changes in coloration, color pattern, texture, size, or habit of the leaves, since that is the most obvious part of a hosta. But there are plenty of sports out there based on other changes. Think about how often you see a new hosta described as "A better growing version of hosta Stinky Grower X". With careful study you can often determine that the reason these improved varieties grow better is that they have larger root systems--they sported underground, basically. Other new introductions are offered as "a larger version of Hosta Not Quite Big Enough", which often means that the original hosta threw a division that got larger than the parent plant--another version of sporting.

This nice dark flower is another version of sporting. Flower coloration is definitely an area where sporting can and does occur. You are now be the proud owner of Purple Mouse Ears, and if you decide to actually call it that, I want a piece eventually for giving you the name!

[eastwood2007]

Chris, I wish you had asked this earlier when my 4 yr old BME was in bloom.

I would be curious to see if there was a variance in flower colors on different scapes of the same clump.

[Chris_W]

Hi again,

Yes, I agree that many things can change when a plant sports - I'm not a big believer in the smaller than or larger than or better growing than group of sports, because I feel too often those claims go untested upon introduction, then later as they are grown in more and more gardens we see that the claims just don't hold true and it was more likely just growing conditions which led to those claims. However, it has happened, I just want to see it tested more than once before I believe it

Back to my question, though, "Can hosta flower color sport or change in tissue culture?", I had a nice email exchange with Clarence Falstad and he shared with me that hosta flowers can sometimes darken with a change in ploidy ie a change from diploid to tetraploid. In the case of my ruffled edge blue mouse ears, he posed the possibility (this would need to be backed up with testing before calling it the "truth") that since BME is already a tetraploid, then this sport of mine could possibly be an octoploid. Perhaps the edge is still a tetraploid, so that is causing the ruffling. Originally I thought the center might be a tetraploid with the edge being a diploid, but instead it could be the center that has turned octoploid.

I'm going to segregate the other dark flowering blue mouse ears now, and see if that could be a sport too. That one might also grow differently in the long run.

Looks like BME has a lot of sporting going on with it!

[renaldo75]

Interesting. Cool discoveries, Chris. You'll have fun seeing what they're all doing for a few years now.

[kHT]

So Chris, are you going to have this one tissue cultured? It would be interesting if this one can be done or if it collapses.

[Chris_W]

No, it won't be put into tissue culture. It would be way too difficult to do, since it would be impossible to tell which plants were true to type during the culture process. You might get 10 to 20 offsets and have no idea if they are true to type - then if you try to increase those you might be propagating just regular blue mouse ears. Only after growing them for about 2 years would you know for sure what you have, and none of it might be the plant you are looking for. I even asked Clarence about it, and he confirmed my suspicions that it would be impossible to culture.

So this can only be done the old fashioned way - simple division. And in a couple years when there are enough to sell, I won't even know where to start on price

[kHT]

Thank you Chris, it appears Clarence is right on the money. There was a reason I asked as I learned B. Shorty's Variegated collapsed so we suppect that one
may have been someone's tissue culture. Keep asking questions!!