I'm a purist about naming, so forgive me if it sounds like I'm being contentious... I'm really just trying to clarify...

Halcyon is blue. When they tissue culture it, they get a lot of different sports. There are at least five yellow-centered oned, of which June, Katherine Lewis, and Paradise Joyce are the most common in gardens.

June came out of Neo plants in England and is by far the most widely circulated.

Katherine Lewis also came out of England and was registerd as a smaller, more compact and brighter centered plant than June. It's registration pretty much just describes it in comparison with June. (I've never grown KL)

Paradise Joyce is one of Marco Fransen's early introductions (not registered... I've never asked him why he doesn't register the Paradise plants???) He did patent it. PJ comes up solid green (or almost) and its center becomes lighter as the season goes along. Marco must like it a lot - he named it for his wife.

I remember a story that might illustrate why he is so fond of it... I think it is the subtlety. When we visited his place in Holland, we asked lots of questions and he was very surprised at how often we liked solid-colored plants. We were in awe of a set of Devon Green (sport of Halcyon with no wax... bright green, elegant form) in 50 gallon pots - they used these for flower shows around Europe. Marco said that Americans don't like the solid plants - they like variegated and showier ones. Europeans are more likely to enjoy the solids and subtle ones.

Now to the complications. June has always looked different depending on light conditions, ranging from a center that barely turns yellow by the end of the season to plants that start out with a buttery yellow center and then go to an almost white, parchment center.

But since the beginning, we've also known that June is very variable in tissue culture. Some plants are just much lighter than others. At one time, people tried to actually name four Junes with Roman numerals, primarily on how light or dark the center is. The kind-of "standard" for nursery plants of June today is a fairly bright yellow in spring and light yellow in fall - again, with light variations adding confusion.

Katherine Lewis also became confused in the hosta trade. A visit to the hosta library will show you some that match the registration... lighter, smaller margins, earlier... really kind of like June Fever only with wax. Others are indistinguishable from June. I've even seen plants labeled KL that are slow to color, like PJ.

Oh... let's add one more confusion. June Fever was registered as a June sport... June without the wax gene. I have heard it stated with authority more than once that the registration is wrong... that June Fever came out of Devon Green... no idea why that registration wasn't changed.

So... what do we know. We know that Halcyon sported to lots of yellow-centered hostas and three of them got the names above... and that there's a lot of variation in each of those three strains.

If I get a plant named June that looks more like Katherine Lewis, I'll never change that name tag to KL. It all has to do with the source chromosomes.

Every major wholesaler has a source of June tissue culture plants. Most retailers are getting their Junes from those sources. I doubt that anybody is tissue culturing Katherine Lewis... there are enough plants to be split and sold for the small demand there is. Paradise Joyce is being tissue cultured, but not in nearly the quantities of June.

So think of those three "sisters." We clone June a lot... but there is no way I'd call an oddball that comes from that cloning by the name of her sister... you could say that June's offspring looks just like her aunt - but since she came from different source chromosomes, I wouldn't ever say she IS her aunt.

A genetic test could determine that the same exact sporting that occured in tc of Halcyon to give KL happened to occur in tc of a different plant, June... could happen... they all hark back to Halcyon... but I'm not going to be genetic testing all my odd (the trade term is "not-to-type") plants to see what they might match up with.

So what do we do with all our not-true-to-type Junes?

For a lot of years, the answer was obvious - name them! The sport listing shows 21 named sports... and 9 more sports of those sports...

I actually enjoy these kind of plants. I label them "sport of 'xxx' " (the double quotes indicate a "use" name rather than a formal, legal name that uses single quotes for a cultivar. Sometimes when it is totally not what it was labeled, but I want to keep track of it, I've use NOT - as in "NOT Gosan Gold Midget" (one famously mislabeled batch of tc that went to market.) Sometimes I give it a use name... H. "Beverly" for example, that doesn't cross with any registered or common unregistered plant.

Lin... I think both the plants in your picture are June. There is just that much variability in the tc of June... Some labs cull the plants that are darker, others just send them all out together. If you see a real June Fever there will be no doubt in your mind. With no wax, not only is the center shiny and bright - the margin is a lovely bright shiny green.