Red flower?

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MikeDom
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Red flower?

Post by MikeDom »

Can anyone help me understand why this Frithia pulchra is described as having a red flower?

EA31204C-4B03-4C0C-84F0-DBBE8844F0E1.jpeg
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Stuart
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Re: Red flower?

Post by Stuart »

Very occasionally, there will be a red flowered one but the normal colour is purple as in the photo. There is a white flowered one which sometimes has a different name. Where did you see the description as red?

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Re: Red flower?

Post by MikeDom »

Thanks Stuart, this is from a batch of 100 seed of FRITHIA pulchra rote Bluete sold by Koehres. From the 70 odd plants I retained, they all have these flowers, nothing red in sight.
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iann
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Re: Red flower?

Post by iann »

The "red" flowers come in a variety of shades. Some are strikingly red, many not so striking. The ones I've grown from seed all produced flowers that I couldn't distinguish from the standard purple.
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Re: Red flower?

Post by edds »

I've sown seed of this this year from the same source and was hoping for at least reddish purples! Oh well at least the normal colour is so pretty!
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David Neville
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Re: Red flower?

Post by David Neville »

As far as I'm aware, the first recorded mention of the red flowerered variant was by the late Ernest Hepworth from Sussex, UK, who named the plant with the cultivar name of 'Fireworth'. Over the years I have had a number of occasional red flowered sports appear among the typical purple flowered plants, when raised from seed.. Red and white flowered sports are by far the most common productions from purple flowered culitivars in a range of horticultural favourites including chrysanths, and so this is not an unexpected occurrence.
I confess to never having seen a white flowered sport of F. pulchra. The only white flowered Frithias I have ever seen have been specimens of Frithia humilis, which is a distinct, smaller growing species in the genus.
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Re: Red flower?

Post by topsy »

Hi David,

Sorry to contradict you but "Fireworth" was a name given to a "cultivar" of Fenestraria which Ernest Hepworth grew and which was simply one of the colour forms which grows in habitat.

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Re: Red flower?

Post by David Neville »

Oops! Thanks for the correction Suzanne. Of course it was a Fenestraria. My memory is definitely not what it used to be .... I must start double-checking things before I post them online!
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Re: Red flower?

Post by esp »

MikeDom wrote: Wed Jul 14, 2021 4:53 pm Can anyone help me understand why this Frithia pulchra is described as having a red flower?
EA31204C-4B03-4C0C-84F0-DBBE8844F0E1.jpeg
I assume this description is to clarify that it's not the white flowered form,
but done in such a way that it doesn't clarify anything.
Cidermanrolls
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Re: Red flower?

Post by Cidermanrolls »

Could it just be that the red flower is the result of recessive genes. These seeds may well have come from a red flowered plant, but the red genes have just not expressed themselves?
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