This posting is a little different. Nothing to do with chimera African violets but an interesting observation that comes from J. Miemietz in Germany. Although I have had only one occasion of seeing conjoined leaves in my long experience of growing African violets, apparently not the case with J. Miemietz. This young plant already has *2* conjoined leaves on it. This cultivar, Izumrudnyj Bereg (Изумрудный Берег) already had one of the two conjoined leaves put down to see if the plantlets it produces will produce conjoined leaves at the same rate. Perhaps it will not express this conjoined leaf habit at all. But I look forward to the outcome and hope we will be kept updated.
The leaf underside nicely illustrates the conjoined leaves.
As a continuation of the blog posting of May 1st and as the Purple bloom of Yachiyo Blue plant matures and upon closer examination I discovered technically it is still a chimera African violet. It just spontaneously morphed into a different chimera. You may need to click on the image to see the detail.
Here is an observation that raises more questions but provide no answers. I observed the Yachiyo Blue chimera African violet demonstrate bilateral flowering as seen in the below image. Does this indicate the end of this plant as a chimera? Is this a transient event?
The image immediately below is the bloom of a first rate Yachiyo Blue chimera African violet. The pinwheel effect, the broad white and blue stripes is well noted.
Then on the other side of the plant ther blooms are solid purple. The chimera-ism feature is totally lost. Is this a transience event? I suspect that this is the end of this plant exhibiting this chimera feature and as the plant continues to grow it will becoem totally solid. But we shall see as I will document the progress.
As I was tissue propagating more Shimai, a sport that will consistently appear when the bloom is not true is this cream colored flower with green edges. I have relegated those outcomes to the compost pile. For some reason I must have placed one of them to the side. I have no recollection as to why other then I believe the blooms on these were a bit larger then most of the blooms of the plants that on occasion would bloom this way. I noticed the blooms were very long lasting as other blooms tend to be when there is a significant amount of green present. As I watched the flowers develop I noticed a very definite color change with age. The photographs below are an attempt to illustrate this but the lighting was a challenge such that the balance of purple-cream-green reflects that of what you actually see in person. These are not the bestI can obtain at this time.
The above image is of a newly opening bloom typical of a common sport of Shimai
Shimai sport mature bloom
The above image is a bloom that is mature and demonstrating the purple coloration over the white/cream background with some diminishing of the green edges. Click on the image to enlarge and see the details.
Shimai Sport with mature and new bloom
So you can compare and contract between the newly open bloom and the mature bloom. The newly opened bloom is white star shaped bloom with strong green edges. As the bloom matures the green disparates somewhat and purple coloration begins to appear throughout the petal.
As this site is dedicated to the chimera African violet and subsequently is each article that is written here, there are occasions that an exceptional photo or article on African violets is published somewhere that deserves to be read and looked at by all those that enjoy this plant. This article has nothing to do with chimera African violets, but has everything to do with the appreciation of African violets. I recently read this article and must say found it unique on several levels. Please check it out here. Enjoy.
Back in August I posted an image of a bloom from a sucker that formed on “The Alps”. As you know the foliage on The Alps is dark green. The sucker was medium to light green so I suspected the blooms would be different. The plant bloomed a nice all white double that looked or rather reminded me of a daffodil. As A reminder or if you had not seen that blog here is theLINK. It was the only bloom and the plant was small. After a little time it re-bloomed. The outcome is below.
The next step I will take is to try and propagate another plant from a leaf of this plant. If in fact I can get an identical plant and bloom then we can say with certainty the sport has totally lost the second genetic influence that made it’s parent a chimera.
These two chimera African violets, (Concord), were clones from the same parent plant. The flowers are different. You may perceive the difference in the blooms (above and below) subtle or not but there is a difference. I consider the top one unacceptable and frankly destined to the compost heap. That is not atypical when some of my chimeras’s just don’t look right to discard them. A very subjective approach I know, but I find it frustrating to see Concords as well as other cultivars being offered with margins that are obviously much thinner then what the person that hybridize it originally offered. I have seen this specifically on occasion with concord flowers (as illustrated above) with smaller white margins, the purple is not necessarily even in coloration and it appears that there are some white specks in the purple. Also in the white portion there is a purple hue. Finally the edges of the petals appear thicker.
Below is (what I consider a proper Concord bloom) the image has a larger white areas, the white is pure white with no purple hue, the bloom is larger and the purple coloration is even with no tiny white specks. Also the edges of the petals are not thicker then the rest of the petals. It is what a concord should be. The photographs were taken with some back lighting to help illustrate the points of the coloration.
This short video is a overview of the features and functionality of this web site. If you want to watch this directly on YouTube where the image is bigger, just click on the lower right hand corner of the video screen above, where it says “YouTube”. It should turn red when you align it correctly. Click on it and you will be taken to YouTube to watch this video in a larger format.
With chimera African violets, just when I think I have seen it all, I come to the realization there is plenty more (surprises) to see. When I saw the below image I realized that I have see this occur on my own Granger Sugar Frost just a couple of times randomly over many years. But never as a regular bloom feature on one plant! Wow! I copied the below image from the fuzzy Foliage Blog. You need to click on this link Fuzzy Foilage Blog to get a bit more information.
I have tried several different methods to grow Chimera African violets with LED’s (Light Emitting Diodes). I have used the array panels, the LED chips and the LED arrays in light bulb format. I have found that the LED panel arrays to be a waste of money. Not that the plants do not grow well with them. They grow as well as if they were being grown under florescent light. The issue is they do not last. The manufacture specifications indicates they will last about 50,000 hours. Reality is of the two panels I tested, BOTH only lasted 8 months or about 3900 hours. In all fairness I only tested two panels but for both to fail so quickly is indicative of a problem. They range in price from $30-$35 a panel. Too expensive to be replacing every 8 months even if the watt consumption rate is 14 watts per hour. The first image is the panels first installed 8 months ago. The second is the panel about 8 months and $35.00 later.
LED Light Panel – Newly Installed
LED Panel eight months after being installed.
This is the same panel as above about 8 months later. I circled all the failed LED’s. It can be found on eBay under “LED Grow Light Panels” using 225 White, Red, Orange, Blue LED’s. Buyers beware!!
Today I noticed a bloom on a shelf with plants that were being grown to blooming size from those that I tissue cultured. I could not visually identify it and went to the label on the container to see what it was. It was labeled as Part Fun. This is no “Party Fun”. click here to see Party Fun blooms. Party Fun has those broken blotches and patched of dark purple with a lighter purple on pink pinwheel typical of chimera African violets. As you can see below it has lost the randomized blotches of purple for the more organized pinwheel purple on pink pinstripes. I guess in this case for this plant a more appropriate name (based on its more conservative appearance) would be the “Party’s Over”.
This posting is a little different. Nothing to do with chimera African violets but an interesting observation that comes from J. Miemietz in Germany. Although I have had only one occasion of seeing conjoined leaves in my long experience of growing African violets, apparently not the case with J. Miemietz. This young plant already has *2* conjoined leaves on it. This cultivar, Izumrudnyj Bereg (Изумрудный Берег) already had one of the two conjoined leaves put down to see if the plantlets it produces will produce conjoined leaves at the same rate. Perhaps it will not express this conjoined leaf habit at all. But I look forward to the outcome and hope we will be kept updated.
