I'll give it a go from memory - somebody probably can access a printed version and correct me...

It is a darned unlikely story.

Back in 1961, Eric Smith made a hosta cross that was highly unlikely. He took the very earliest tardiflora flowers... which typically wouldn't set seed in England... and pollinated it from a sieboldiana that was re-blooming. So... most typically that pollen and that flower would never have met... and even if they had, the flower wouldn't typically set seed.

He ripened the seeds in a solution of sugar and water. He got about 30 plants out of this and 14 were blue. He named that generation 1. The name "tardiana" was invented for the cross of two species, tardiflora and sieboldiana.

He was able to cross those blues with each other to make a series of generations. They call it a grex because the plants were crossed and recrossed, mixing up the same genes over and over in search of the best combinations.

Halcyon came out of the first generation. Many other great blues resulted from those crosses.

Fast forward to 1979. Tissue culturing of plants for commercial reasons is just taking off. A new company, Neo-plants Ltd starts up in Leeds, England.

At some point, they are tissue culturing Halcyon. When you tissue culture a plant, you go through them several times as they grow, culling (pulling out and destroying) the plants that are not "true to type." There are some powerful chemicals involved in cloning, and some oddballs occur.

There was an intern or part-time or somesuch employee... as I remember the story, she was 18 or 19. Her mother liked gardening, so the young woman asked if she could take some of the culls home for her mother. Her mom's name was June. As one of these culls grew, they realized they liked this odd sport of Halcyon that had the chartreuse center that turned to yellow and had some color-overlay streaking... very pretty plant.

I'm hazy on how it was that Neo got the plant back, but they produced the first June plants and it took off from there.

Of course, now we know that Halcyon and many of its offspring are prone to sporting.

For example, if Halcyon sports to a plant without the wax gene, and is a shiny green instead of blue... that one is probably Devon Green (aka Canadian Sheild, I think, and at least one more name...) From Devon Green we got a yellow-centered plant - June Fever. June Fever sported to a tetraploid, Justine.

Halcyon sported to a white-edged plant... El Nino... and to one that starts out with a yellow margin that eventually turns to cream or white - First Frost.

The story of June's mother could go on and on... Halcyon has so many interesting sports. But June herself turned out to be an amazing mother as well... Hugo's database of sports currently shows 21 named progeny and in turn, those have resulted in nine more named sports. (BTW - you will find June Fever listed as a June sport, but I believe the real story is that it came out of Devon Green.)

As long as I'm at it... I'll mention a few of my favorites from the Halcyon clan.

Halcyon - still a great blue hosta

First Generation:
June
Blue Ivory
Devon Green (want a really fine looking green?)
El Nino (hey - why doesn't Hugo's database list El Nino?)
First Frost

Second Generation
June Fever
Touch of Class
Olympic Sunrise (an oddball... out of June's sibling, Katherine Lewis, it has significantly larger leaves with subtle slow coloring-up like its parent and like Paradise Joyce.)

and Third Generation... I really like
Justine
Teatime

all of that because Eric Smith fertilized that unlikely flower with that unlikely pollen. He was never able to set seed on species tardiflora again.

(note: I borrowed heavily from a description Bob Solberg wrote about the origin of the tardianas.)

sublime idiot ... i just typed about 90% of that a month back or two ...

i was going to simply relpy that i didnt know the story of june.. but i recalled the story of jeb.. see link

all i have to add to your masterful response.. is that it took me years.. to realize.. with no WWW back then.. that smith used english birds.. mostly sea birds for the names... its a quick trick ... to guess if a small blue is in the grex .... and that herb benedict took a few out to TF 6 ... like blue clown i think ...

i am not sure.. but schmid may have done something in his first tome on such ...

good work boy

ken

ps: now that should be in the FAQs

Here is a link that might be useful: link

We are really fortunate on the forum to have two great story tellers, with a background in hosta that knows where all the bodies are buried.

I'll bet between the two of you we'll have a fine time learning some hosta history.

Thanks Jim, and thanks Ken. Two part harmony.

Very interesting information and I thank you so much for the long story and your time to relay it to us. Appreciate it both you Jim and also to you Ken. I seem to have a few of the offsprings in my short 2 years of collecting and enjoying the offspring, 8 of which I have and three on my list for want this fall and will check out the balance on your list of Halcyon family.
Faye

Thank you for a great read!! Really appreciate you for taking your time to respond with fascinating information.
My favorite plants are Halcyon and June and I am working on getting as many "offspring" as I can. I Grow 3 June now in 3 completely different types of light and the coloration is very different on each.... but all look terrific.

Thank you both, keepers of the hosta lore! :) I, too, am enamored of the Halcyon family