Chimera African violets demonstrate variations within the same cultivar. As with everything in life variations are a natural process. This is true with chimera African violets also. If you read the brief piece on why a chimera is a chimera (you can click here to read it) you understand that there are two different genetic populations of cells making up the plant. So a genetic variation in any one of those two cell populations will result in a variance of different appearances to the chimera African violet. A perfect visual example comes from Bryan So. He was kind enough to allow me to use his photographs to illustrate this point. The image below is the tried and true chimera African violet Emerald City. Click on the image to enlarge.
As you can see from the above image the green stripes are across the entire petal with a purple hue on the bottom three petals. Now compare that to the image of Emerald City below (click on the image to enlarge it). Note the green stripe is essentially about a quarter or an eighth the way up the petal and fades away and the purple hue is much more noticeable.
These are both chimera African violets and both are refereed to as Emerald City. This is just one example of variations within a cultivar. It also illiterates a point I have made repeatedly on the importance of purchasing chimera African violets that are in bloom.
In the same line of thought there is a very good article by Neil Lipson in the May/June 2012 African Violet Magazine titled “Chimeras, Pinwheels, Leaf Chimeras, and other Anomalies”. It discusses the point about stability of them (or lack there of) and also makes the point and illustrates that not all chimera African violets have “pinwheel” flowers. It is a good read and just another example why being a member of the African Violet Society of America is well worth it. Click here to read about membership
