More Sparaxis on wiki plus viral question

Mary Sue Ittner msittner@mcn.org
Mon, 16 Jun 2003 21:19:11 PDT
Dear All,

No one has answered Paul's question about his Sparaxis and whether they 
could be virused unless someone did it privately and I suspect that most of 
us don't have an answer, but one of those looks a little scary to me with 
all those streaks. I guess you'd have to test it to be sure. Like my red 
one I think it is very pretty however. Looking at Paul's pictures I was 
reminded of a visit to Terry Hatch's in New Zealand. Terry was growing both 
Watsonia and Sparaxis in the ground in an open spot where he was allowing 
the insects to pollinate the plants and seeing what kind of interesting 
hybrids were the results. I was fascinated by the intricate color 
combinations and was surprised when he said what he was trying to do was to 
breed for solid colors. Those weren't the ones I liked the most, but he 
felt the public would prefer the solid colors. He or someone else must have 
succeeded because Paul's pictures show Sparaxis in a wide range of colors. 
I especially like the pink one as that is not a color I'd expect in Sparaxis.

Mary Sue


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