In article ,
peterlsutton wrote:

I can see the logic that they will not come true. But if that is the case -
what was the packet of seed that they originally came from. How was that
produced . If it is a named variety - you assume that it is not variable
and hence came true from its own parents. I am assuming that there are no
other varieties close enough to get cross fertilisation, ie that both
parents came from the same packet. Or do seed suppliers give a named
variety to a packet of seed always knowing that they are not all the same.

I should know better than to post after having just flown in from
the west of the USA! Sorry. My posting was massively confusing,
and other people have explained it better.

As David Poole says, if you have a stable, single variety, then it
will come more-or-less true. F1 hybrids won't, packets that include
a mixture of varieties won't, and ones pollinated from neighbouring
plants won't. There are also a few rarer and more obscure, reasons
that things may not come true. In my experience, this means that an
amateur gardener can rarely get varieties of common annuals to come
completely true.

I don't know how Ipomoeas are pollinated in the UK, but I do know
that the ones that self-seeded one year in my garden were different
from their parents.


Regards,
Nick Maclaren.