I pricked out 60 seedlings of Amsonia hubrichtii yesterday (seeds from
my own plant), sown in spring. I was most surprised to see that there
was a marked variation in stem colour; five in six were deep pink, the
rest were a pale green. There was no difference in size.

I have never seen this sort of variation in colour before. I assume that
A. hubrichtii is self-fertile - it's not exactly a common perennial,
although I have seen it for sale at the odd garden centre. I haven't
seen any other Amsonia plants around, even tabernaemontana, which is a
lot more common and might cross-pollinate hubrichtii.

Any explanations for the variation in colour, and the 5:1 ratio?

--

Jeff