... growing and hybridizing all kinds of plants in zone 6b Maryland since the 1980's.

Saturday, January 14, 2017

Viola arvensis hybrids

These pansies and F4 Viola arvensis X pansy hybrids are getting plenty of cold challenge. I was planning on putting them in the ground but ran out of time, so they're toughing it out in pots. We've at least gotten as low as 9 F so far and also had several days where the temperature never rose out of the teens and low twenties. On these days, they all look like frozen spinach.
Here's a select F4 line from the Viola arvenis X pansy crosses. I've kept a few of the more special ones indoors. This particular line is orange and pretty uniform already.
 
Close-up of the flower.  

This is another of the F4 arvensis hybrids, selected for having a lot of pubescence on the stems. No good reason for this selection, I just thought it would be fun to pull them in the direction of furriness to see how furry they could get.

3 comments:

  1. I find it interesting that the leave on the golden F4 have deep veining. The shape of the flower is also slightly wavy. I am wondering were there any morphological anomalies with these lines, because of how inbred they are. I think it would be fun idea if you would cross the golden hybrid with a big orange pansy this summer.

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    Replies
    1. This is what you probably would get if you crossed the 2 plants seen in these photos together:
      http://freeflowerpictures.net/flowers/pansies/Pansy_flower_1267.html
      Can you tell I'm obsessed? :D

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  2. Hi Linards, sorry I'm so slow in responding.
    I haven't gotten any further with these. The orange/golden one is actually derived from a big orange pansy. I like working with these but I keep losing them because the seeds don't seem to maintain viability for very long. I need to just get a naturalized population going so they can survive my neglect! ;)

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