I found this cane at a garden center today-very reasonable $4.00 for a 6 inch pot with substantial growth so I bought 2 but is this really Sophie Cecile (sorry, no pic)? She S. Irene looks very much like S. Cecile. I'm hoping she is a hybrid and Sophie Cecile is a parent.
There is a 'Sophie Cecile' and an 'Irene Nuss' which both had the same pollen parent ('Lenore Olivier'). I have never heard of Sophie Irene so I suspect the seller had no idea what the true name was so they put the two names together to cover all bases.
Post a picture if you can. P.S. Irene Nuss shows some silver streaking at times but usually goes solid olive green under normal garden conditions.
I bought two mystery begonias yesterday. I sent photos to a local arboretum curator who ID'd them for me as "sophie irene", so I'm leaning toward believing that she exists!
I found this thread during an Internet search to get into. on that begonia. I have photos, but have yet to figure out how to upload them here. If anyone wants me to email them to them, I'd be glad to. I'd also be delighted if someone wanted to post here them for me.
The picture looks like 'Sophie Cecile'. I did a search for "Sophie Irene" and got a total of 6 hits (one was this thread, one was the site you linked to, and another was at DG about the same problem). Two other sites were about an author and a book. The last site was a bunch of gobbledygook.
I think 'Sophie Irene' got misnamed (renamed) by a grower/seller and now the unsuspecting buyers will think that a begonia with this name actually exists.
