Ruth, I am so happy for you too. Barbra

Ruth, that is absolutely amazing! I still wonder if H. papilio is a carrier... Many people claim that it is resistant to virus but I'm not sure it is just resistant to the symptoms!

Either way, I'm very happy for you!

Now, how do you clean the soil which the virused plants were found? Is that possible?

Ruth,

This is exciting news for all of us..the best! Like Josh says, we still don't know if h papilio is a carrier, but I will choose to believe that it is totally immune..considering that your clump was totally surrounded by virused plants, this is really encouraging!!

Thank you for all you work and expense determining this for all of us!

Donna

Donna,

I too believe that it doesn't contract the virus :) Several species seem to be resistant to MV that I have noticed, I wonder if it breaks down in the progeny? I wonder if there is a way we can secure the immunity in future plants by breeding primarily with the plants with most immunity (i.e. H. papilio, H. brasilianum and H. reticulatum)

Josh, So breeding with H. papilio and breeding back to flowers with H. papilio in them would be the best route to take. Now, if they take, I just dusted 4 flowers of Fairytale ( I think Fairytale has pap in it) with pap pollen and as much as I tried to get Party Pooper to take pap pollen (I tried on 2 plants) it didn't take. Giraffe won't set seeds for me either, I wonder if there is a list of h.papilio hybrids out there for the novice like me...As far as the other two H. brasilianymn and H. reticulatum most of us including myself don't have access to those. I think Ambiance is another that I don't have...Just a thought....

Donna

Donna

I've had only two successes in crossing Party Pooper. Once with itself and another time with Athene (a pure white with green throat). I have not yet grown out the seeds to know that they'll even be viable but will hope to shortly.

Ryan,

Well that's good news that PP is capable of setting seeds, I'll just have to try again another time.. thanks..I had only 4 flowers on two plants at two different times..the first one I selfed both blooms (no pap pollen available) and the second I used pap pollen on both.

Donna

Hi Donna--

I pollinated every single flower my PP produced this round on three scapes. Only two worked! So its not an easy one to pollinate-- and again, yet to be seen if the seeds are even viable. However, I have seen seeds set in situations I woul dhave never guess-- such as exotic star x dancing queen... Royal Velvet x Jewel. Hoping for some neat hybrids out of these guys.

Ryan, and everyone else....

Speaking of strange crosses that take, of my 3 successfully growing seedpods on h.papilio, my papilio x sweet nymph (of all things) yielded about 40+ good seeds, and several have already sprouted (!!) and the rest are swelling!! My huge pod of papilio x Misty (which I thought would certainly yield some good seeds) all the seeds were bad, every last one of them, I threw them all away. And lastly, papilio by Rebel/Lilly Star (I'm sure it's the Lilly Star that took) yielded lots of seeds, most were bad, but about 15 are good and they are now soaking and 2 of them have already sprouted and I'm sure there will be more as it's only been a short time soaking for all the papilio seeds. Goes to show, you never what's going to take so trying anything and everything is worth the effort.
I had a total of 8 papilio blossoms and all were pollenated with this and that and several with what I was sure were diploids and they didn't take...in my case it's just a throw of the dice!

I have also put papilio pollen of lots of other flowers and the only one currently that is growing very large is Benfica (go figure)!!

Good luck with your crosses!! :-)

Donna

Interesting line of discussion y'all. Ruth, if you would like a few mature H. papilio on which to experiment just let me know and I'll send them out. I might suggest intentionally trying to infect papilio, let it run a season, then submit for analysis. Donna, would you like me to take a shot at crossing something onto 'Giraffe'?
The IBS gallery and an article "~Prodgeny of Papilio" shows various H. papilio crosses. Below are a few of mine (pics I've posted in the past few years)

{{gwi:394585}}

{{gwi:394587}}

{{gwi:394589}}

Houstonpat,
Much as the scientist in me would like to do the experiment of trying to infect papilio, I don't have a good way to isolate a potentially infected plant so I'll have to decline.

Your crosses are beautiful.
Ruth

Pat,

If you are offering to pollenate Giraffe x h. papilio or any of your lovelies pictures above..please do and if you are successful and would wish to part with a few seeds, I'd be more than happy to grow some on..:-) I pollenated 3 flowers of my Giraffe and nothing took..in fact..my bulb looks like its dying!! Originally, I had 2 bulbs planted in the same pot..one did splendidly and the other looked bad. Last fall, I pulled them out of the pot and one has a nasty NFB larvae that had eaten out most of the inside..the other looked really good, had about 10 small bulblets attached and so I replanted that one and obviously I either missed another maggot or it just didn't like being taken out of the pot! I'll wait a bit longer before I take another peek, but I'm not optimistic. If wouldn't be so bad when you loose these bulbs and they are still available.. if you though that when you ordered another you wouldn't get a mislabel.. Again and Again!!

I do remember your posting some of those gorgeous pictures above.. definitly the one with the extra petal..the first and last are my favorites, do you remember by chance what you used with papilio to get these? I also seem to remember (I think) that you might have had a cross with Red Lion?? If you ever had extra bulblet of any of your Papilio crosses that you no longer want (..dreaming..) I would be deliriously happy to pay all expenses for a first class one way ticket to Ma!!

Thanks for posting these beauties again..

Donna

Ruth, I may be able to conduct the test. If I can pull it off perhaps I can send you out a sample of infected H. pap leaf for analysis. I think this would be useful information.
Donna, I do occasionally have offsets of these and other crosses available. Unfortunately, just last Sunday I gave away all this year's. The top and bottom cross above were H. pap x H. aulicum.(corrected) The middle is H. pap x 'johnsonii'

Anyone can submit a sample to the U. of Minnesota Plant Disease Clinic for electron microscopy. They have instructions on their website and when I called they were very nice. $50 for one sample, plus cost of overnight mailing if you want to make sure the sample stays in good shape.
Ruth

Here is a link that might be useful: plant disease clinic

Many thanks Ruth. I'll keep y'all posted.