H. 'Blue Cadet'
Sunday July 6th, 2008 another 5 Hosta varieties were added to the collection. The previous Sunday I was introduced to a new neighbour of an old neighbour of ours who'd moved about 6 blocks from us last year and it turns out this lady had a rather nice little
collection of mini Hostas, some of which I already have and some of which were new to me. She told me to take divisions of whatever Hosta I wanted 
and rather than appear like some greedy ogre I thought it best to first do divisions of some of my own minis and not show up empty-handed before I'd take her up on her offer.
One of the problems though is proper identification. Most of the ones I took no longer had a legible tag in the pot they were in, so it became time to solicit the opinion of others to see what likely we have in front of us. ' Blue Cadet' was suggested as a strong possibility for this one and for the time being that's what I'll stick with.
Most of the divisions that came home with me were large enough to be able to do further division
before potting them up. I ended up potting 3 'Blue Cadets'.
In attempt to discover the true identity of this variety I posted inquiries on 3 different discussion forums and the consensus seems to be this one is NOT as deduced by yours truly. As part of a trade however I have coming an 'official' 'Blue Cadet' and that will certainly allow me to do some real up-close comparison of this and 'the real thing'. Can't wait for it to arrive here...
Well, I must say I feel somewhat vindicated now that I have received these from Brandon, MB, as being the real McCoy. They look exactly like
what I received as this NOID last year, twice. There is a much larger division I received last year in the 'Emerald Isle' party pack of four NOIDs, the one you see below.
One of the main reasons for the apparent confusion is that the first pictures I posted on the forums of this larger division showed leaves with serration on the edges of them, something no-one else had reported for 'Blue Cadet' and the interesting thing is that the 2nd flush of leaves
do not show any of that serration, nor do the leafy bracts on the scapes, they're smooth.
I'll keep an eagle-eye on this edge serration business in 2010 to see if perhaps it disappears as the plant matures. This cultivar is common as dirt and you would have thought this matter would have been raised before. Having said that, it's quite conceivable a minor TC sport has crept in and when TC liners are typically sold they may well be too small for the serration to show itself, thus sorta sneaking in as it were.
Some more info in Hugo's Database.
