The
genetic makeup of a hosta cultivar can be an interesting
and helpful piece of knowledge. For the home gardener,
knowing the background of a plant may help to know how
it should look and how it will grow. Hybridizers and
tissue culture propagators want to know the genetics of
a plant to determine which traits might be passed on to
the progeny of a certain hosta.
Unfortunately, exact
information is not always available for many hostas. In
fact, the parentage of the majority of the hostas on the
Hosta Helper are missing some or all of the genetic
background. Many hostas can only be described as a
"Type" plant or as having a certain plant in its
"background" based on shared physical traits. We have
tried to accumulate all of these types of information in
one place to make the best of a less than optimum
situation.
This is a listing of all plants in the
database for which we have a listed pod
parent, pollen parent or sport mother. They
are listed in alphabetical order by cultivar
name.
Included here
is a complete list of all hostas in the
database that have at least one new cultivar
offspring to its credit. This alphabetical
listing includes 1,637 cultivar or species
which have been identified as parents of
from 1 to several hundred new hostas.
Hybrid hostas
where we have identified of at least one
of its parents are listed here in
alphabetical order.
Sports are
more or less spontaneous changes to plant
tissue. In hostas, sports of leaf tissue are
highly prized for their variegation of
colors.
Hosta species
are those plants that grow in the wilds in
Asia. There are currently 42 recognized
species and many naturally occurring
botanical forms or varieties. Listed here
are the identified offspring of hosta
species.
At times, rather than give the actual parent
plant, originators will cite what is called
a "complex cross" instead. This would be
something like reporting [('Blue Angel' × 'Elegans') × ('Sagae' ×
'Halcyon')] as the pod parent. These plants are actually
the new cultivar's maternal grandparents and would be
considered part of the plant's "background".
At times,
records are not kept or information is not
available on the parentage of a hosta
cultivar. So, the parentage is listed as
"Unknown".
These are the
"Brothers and Sisters" of the hosta world.
They are plants from seeds from the same
seed pod or plants chosen for naming from
the same tissue culture batch. They are not
clones so they do not have the same DNA as
identical twins.
A few
hybridizers have experimented with using
chemicals to induce changes in the genetic
makeup of seedlings or sports. This may
result in the production of plants that have
more than the typical number of genes found
in the species. These plants often exhibit
traits which are different and may be
desirable. Two chemicals, Colchicine and
Oryzalin are most commonly used.
The
genetic makeup of a hosta cultivar can be an interesting
and helpful piece of knowledge. For the home gardener,
knowing the background of a plant may help to know how
it should look and how it will grow. Hybridizers and
tissue culture propagators want to know the genetics of
a plant to determine which traits might be passed on to
the progeny of a certain hosta. 
