H.'Fortunei Hyacinthina' sports
continued

We're now on March 22nd, 2008 and this time of year I'm like a little kid in a candy store, all excited and not knowing where to turn and what to look at first. This is the big division I made last year of my 'Fortunei Hyacinthina' sport. When the division was made there were four distinct shoots, each with a somewhat different variegation pattern. I'll save you the trouble of counting, this spring 8 noses are working their way up and I cannot wait to see what pattern shows up!

I would expect there to be noticeable differences among the various shoots in terms of variegation and I wouldn't be shocked to find myself doing further divisions on this crown come June, time will tell.

It's now April 12th and we're frightfully close to seeing the first of the leaves begin to unfurl. I have this feeling though that it'll be at least another 2 weeks or so before I'll get a fair idea of what the year will bring in terms of variegation for this division. And depending on what actually shows, further division may well be in store for this lot, probably by mid June.

This is pretty darned exciting. It's April 16th and if you take a close look at the fattest shoot, in the center of the picture on the right, you will see the first subtle signs of medio variegation starting to show, most noticeable on the lower leaves, or cataphylls, of the shoot!

And remember, last year this was a 4 eye/shoot division. There are now 9 of them poking up!

Here we are, a week later, April 23rd, and see how nicely it's unfurling leaves to show how far the variegation has progressed this year. While in some respects it is reminiscent of 'Gold Standard', it's showing the variegation a lot earlier than that cultivar does and I expect that by season's end the variegation will be mostly white, rather like it did last year.

Four days later and I don't think you'll have difficulty understanding my excitement over all that we are now seeing unfurl out of this division. Unfortunately I'm going to be without the use of a camera for a short period and will not be able to document all the goings-on for a while. Oh well.......

But wait.... we're back in business as of May 2nd, thank goodness! And look at how it's showing now!

This one's 180º different from the picture above to the left and looking at it from different angles allows you to see how variable the variegation still is. I like how on some leaves it seems to take a form of medio per side of the leaf, in other words it looks as if there's still a band of green along the center vein of the leaf, rather unique.

This pot was kept under cover overwinter in the sheltered area on the south side of the house, and that's why it is a fair bit ahead of it's brethren elsewhere in the yard. They haven't begun to unfurl as yet and that makes it difficult to make judgement on how the other 'keepers' are doing in their sporting cycle. We'll have pictures of those soon though.

Just for the heckovit, here it is side by side with a 'Gold Standard' and I don't think anyone will have difficulty telling them apart.

You may recall that in 2007 I discovered another Hyacinthina with obvious signs of sporting. This shows the first leaf to unfurl right where I'd noticed the edge variegation for the first time last year. While you cannot really tell much about the relative size of this shoot in this shot, there's no doubt in my mind it's quite a bit 'beefier' than it was last year and that bodes well for the divisions plans I have for this later this May or early June.

Just for fun, this is what the plant looks like on June 15/09. It has grown quite a bit since I discovered it 4 years ago, obviously in terms of number of shoots, but also in the variety of variegation you see in different parts of the plant. Time has come for this plant to be divided, focusing on those shoots that show the most stability.