Thank you all for your quick replies. I would, of course, like to get certain species forms which I especially like, but my hope was that one could easily get variation from seed. It seems this is not true unless the source is a mixed population. Seed not collected in the wild, which I assume is what I purchased from PBS, probably would produce little or no variation. PBS and Alplains are the only seed sources I know of and I've purchased everything Alplains has offered the past two years. There is some hope, however, because Kipp McMichael states "even if the parent color were known, wild Calochortus do not breed true enough to guarantee the offspring will show their parents' color". Why am I fussing about this? Because the photos I see show some forms to be far superior and I was hoping it would not be difficult to get some of these. Irving Gunderson<div id="DAB4FAD8-2DD7-40BB-A1B8-4E2AA1F9FDF2"><br /> <table style="border-top: 1px solid #D3D4DE;"> <tr> <td style="width: 55px; padding-top: 13px;"><a href="http://avg.com/email-signature/…" target="_blank"><img src="https://ipmcdn.avast.com/images/icons/…" alt="" width="46" height="29" style="width: 46px; height: 29px;" /></a></td> <td style="width: 470px; padding-top: 12px; color: #41424e; font-size: 13px; font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; line-height: 18px;">Virus-free. <a href="http://avg.com/email-signature/…" target="_blank" style="color: #4453ea;">http://www.avg.com/</a> </td> </tr> </table><a href="#DAB4FAD8-2DD7-40BB-A1B8-4E2AA1F9FDF2" width="1" height="1"></a></div> On 12/24/17, John Wickham <jwickham@sbcglobal.net> wrote: > I've purchased Calochortus 'Burgundy' a few times. This is the C. venustus > red form that is so well known. To my surprise, the flowers are variable. > Either the plants are seed grown or they use tissue culture from a few > different original sources. > > In the wild, I've seen several populations of C. venustus. Three of note: A > red population was all red flowers, though variable in that color range. > Another was all white with almost no variation. And the third was all over > the map, with colors from white to rich purple. > > John WickhamLos Angeles > > On Saturday, December 23, 2017 9:24 PM, Kipp McMichael > <kimcmich@hotmail.com> wrote: > > > Greetings, > > > First off, a responsible seed collector should be collecting from many > plants and taking only some from each. You can ask the source about this to > confirm. > > > Variation in the forms of a given species are not always present > throughout the population. Calochortus venustus has forms that are a solid, > deep red or purple, for instance. These are found usually mixed in > populations where white predominates. That does not mean, however, that seed > from any population of the white C. venustus will yield these deeper colors. > > > Even if you can get seed from such a population, it is rare that the > collector would know the color of the parent plants. And even if the parent > color was known, wild Calochortus do not breed true enough to guarantee the > offspring will share their parents' color. > > > All this is to say: If you are after specific forms of a given species, > your only sure bet is to find clones/offsets from a bulb of known form. > Since some species do not form bulbils or divide, this can be a challenge. > Luckily, the most variable species, C. venustus, readily divides and > develops bulbils on its stems. > > > I'm not sure if the popular commercial forms of C. venustus offered by > Dutch companies are produced from true-bred seed or bulbils - other listers > can chime in on that score. > > > -|<ipp > > ________________________________ > > _______________________________________________ > pbs mailing list > pbs@lists.pacificbulbsociety.net > http://lists.pacificbulbsociety.net/cgi-bin/… > > > > _______________________________________________ > pbs mailing list > pbs@lists.pacificbulbsociety.net > http://lists.pacificbulbsociety.net/cgi-bin/… > _______________________________________________ pbs mailing list pbs@lists.pacificbulbsociety.net http://lists.pacificbulbsociety.net/cgi-bin/…