I have noticed that if I pay close attention to the leaf color of the developing chimera African violets, that often times it will be a good predictor of the trueness of the bloom prior to it blooming. Here is a perfect example from two young Yukako plants prior to blooming. Note Leaf B, it is medium green and looks like the leaf of a typical Yukako (the uneven lighting and the curel of the leaf gives the apparence that it is not an even medium green. But it is. I am a poor photohrapher). And in fact it turned out to be a perfect Yukako upon blooming. But look at Leaf A.
Note how dark green leaf A is. I suspected the bloom would be atypical for Yukako. And it absolutely was (below). By my own esthetic values (which are usually low) I would say this bloom is not particularly attractive. But it is different and illustrates the point. I have seen the same with “The Alps” chimera African violet. The leaves normally medium green, produced a sport with light green leaves. The bloom was solid white (see last months blog). I am not drawing this as a broad conclusion on all African violets, but on the narrow spectrum of developing Chimeras prior to them blooming. I believe there is a link between leaf color and if the chimera will bloom true or not. Leaves darker then a parent chimera will produce blooms that will not be true and will be a darker color then the parent. Leaves that are lighter then a parent chimera will produce blooms that will not be true and will be lighter in color then the parent.
Another Yukako Sport
So now all this said I have a 3rd Yukako plant that appears (below image) to have Chimera leaves from the same batch at the plants above. It has not bloomed yet. So what can we expect from the bloom? Perhaps we can expect a normal Yukako with chimera leaves or all purple or maybe all green or a mix of both? We will soon find out as a small bloom stalk is now forming.
Yukako (appears that the leaves are chimera leaves)
