More pictures from 2004... unfortunately I think I may have let these go to long between plantings. The last time I tried planting seeds from my arvensis hybrid lines, nothing came up. Viola arvensis is a pansy type violet. It grows as a weed of agricultural field here in Maryland. I used the tiny (not much bigger than a pencil eraser) Viola arvensis flowers as seed parent and pollinated with various humungous-flowered pansies. Here's a picture of Viola arvensis:
Below is one of my favorite lines I'd developed from Viola arvenis X a huge orange pansy. All of the F1 from the cross were bright yellow. I found only two orange revertants among a population of probably more than 50 seedlings. They were the foundation for the apricot-tinted seedlings pictured below - which I think were probably F4.
I had a lot of fun with these crosses - I'll have to start some up again if the old seeds won't sprout. And once I do get them going again, I'll just encourage them to naturalize so I don't have to worry about seeds getting old again!
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