I'm curious whether anybody has experience of growing seedlings from
any of the recent echinacea hybrids -- which, if I understand right,
usually involve crosses between E. purpurea and the yellow-flowered E.
paradoxa, with possibly some involvement of tennesseensis and/or
pallida.

Do the seedlings closely resemble the parents, I wonder? It seems like
with all those genes bouncing around -- not to mention the likelihood
of cross-pollination from other, non-hybrid plants in the neighborhood
-- you might get just about anything.

I just copped a handful of seeds from a lovely, clear-yellow-flowered
plant. The gardener didn't know the name of the variety, but I surmise
it might have been 'Sunrise.' The form of the plant was typical of E.
purpurea. (Some of the hybrids I've seen more closely resembled
prairie species like pallida, with long, narrow leaves arising from a
very tight clump.)

I'm looking forward to experimenting with these, though it will be a
while before I have flowers to show for it, I expect.

--

Wundern kann es mich night, das unser Herr Christus mit Dernen
Gern und mit Sündern gelebt, geht's mir doch eben auch so.

I can't be surprised that our Lord, Jesus Christ, liked to hang out
With sinners and harlots.* That's how it is with me, too.
* -- Johann Wolfgang von Goethe, 1749-1832

The only way to get the same exact plant it to root cuttings.
Hybrid seeds won't grow true. Generally, the plant won't match the
hybrid parent. From a Seed Company standpoint that's sort of the point
of a hybrid. You can only get if from them and they can trademark
their product.
sorry!

On 4 Nov 2006 00:50:57 -0800, "Laura at theGardenPages"
wrote:

The only way to get the same exact plant it to root cuttings.
Hybrid seeds won't grow true. Generally, the plant won't match the
hybrid parent. From a Seed Company standpoint that's sort of the point
of a hybrid. You can only get if from them and they can trademark
their product.
sorry!

While I agree the only way to duplicate a hybrid is by cutting or leaf
propagation, I do not believe it is the reason seed companies do this,
forcing you to buy the seed. Echinacea is a perennial, first of all
and it can be divided.

Yeah, I dig all that, and I'm sorry if my query was unclear. What I'm
curious about is what MIGHT come out of the genetic lottery in these
cases -- which is why I wondered if anybody has experience with raising
seedlings from the new hybrids. As I mused above, it seems to me that
with these interesting gene combinations bouncing around, you might get
something unusual.

I would say strictly speaking that it can't be the *seed* companies
making money from these plants, but rather the original breeders who
(at least in the case of varieties protected by plant patents) control
the propagation rights, and secondarily the vendors who seem to be
charging $15 or so for a single plant.

Also, with regard to coming true from seed, there is the special case
of F1 hybrids, which do come quite true to type as a result of
laborious breeding and hand-pollination, and are priced accordingly. I
used to raise geraniums from T&M seed every year, but it isn't really
much cheaper than buying young plants from the garden center.


On 2006-11-04 03:50:57 -0500, "Laura at theGardenPages"
said:

The only way to get the same exact plant it to root cuttings.
Hybrid seeds won't grow true. Generally, the plant won't match the
hybrid parent. From a Seed Company standpoint that's sort of the point
of a hybrid. You can only get if from them and they can trademark
their product.
sorry!


--

Wundern kann es mich night, das unser Herr Christus mit Dernen
Gern und mit Sündern gelebt, geht's mir doch eben auch so.

I can't be surprised that our Lord, Jesus Christ, liked to hang out
With sinners and harlots.* That's how it is with me, too.
* -- Johann Wolfgang von Goethe, 1749-1832

If you plant seeds from hybrids you will get very varied results. Plant
enough ( hundreds ? ) and you might get a few decent ones, one or two
outstanding ones, and the remaining hundreds will be dire. This is how
the breeders do it. They plant hundreds, find the few outstanding ones
then propagate vegetatively - or aquire "sports" ( chance genetic
mutations) from Joe Public and again propagate vegetatively. Not all
these will be stable and may revert over time to indifferent forms.

You might complain about the prices of named hybrids, but they are very
expensive to produce and a high proportion of the outlay can never be
recovered as the results are not suitable for sale. Also several
generations may have to be raised to reassure the grower that the
cultivar is stable ( and robust enough to survive normal garden
conditions).

It is like a pharmaceutical company producing a new drug - the R & D
costs are immense.

.........and no I do not work in horticulture - but I am happy to pay
the price to get a good plant.

Malcolm






kaspian wrote:

Yeah, I dig all that, and I'm sorry if my query was unclear. What I'm
curious about is what MIGHT come out of the genetic lottery in these
cases -- which is why I wondered if anybody has experience with raising
seedlings from the new hybrids. As I mused above, it seems to me that
with these interesting gene combinations bouncing around, you might get
something unusual.

I would say strictly speaking that it can't be the *seed* companies
making money from these plants, but rather the original breeders who
(at least in the case of varieties protected by plant patents) control
the propagation rights, and secondarily the vendors who seem to be
charging $15 or so for a single plant.

Also, with regard to coming true from seed, there is the special case
of F1 hybrids, which do come quite true to type as a result of
laborious breeding and hand-pollination, and are priced accordingly. I
used to raise geraniums from T&M seed every year, but it isn't really
much cheaper than buying young plants from the garden center.


On 2006-11-04 03:50:57 -0500, "Laura at theGardenPages"
said:

The only way to get the same exact plant it to root cuttings.
Hybrid seeds won't grow true. Generally, the plant won't match the
hybrid parent. From a Seed Company standpoint that's sort of the point
of a hybrid. You can only get if from them and they can trademark
their product.
sorry!


--

Wundern kann es mich night, das unser Herr Christus mit Dernen
Gern und mit Sündern gelebt, geht's mir doch eben auch so.

I can't be surprised that our Lord, Jesus Christ, liked to hang out
With sinners and harlots. That's how it is with me, too.
-- Johann Wolfgang von Goethe, 1749-1832

On 2006-11-21 05:45:54 -0500, said:

If you plant seeds from hybrids you will get very varied results. Plant
enough ( hundreds ? ) and you might get a few decent ones, one or two
outstanding ones, and the remaining hundreds will be dire.... Not all
these will be stable and may revert over time to indifferent forms.

[snip]

Oh, I don't know about that. I've never seen a "dire" echinacea.
Many gardeners grow the straight species E. purpurea, or a seed strain
derived from one of the named varieties like 'Magnus' or 'White Swan'
-- which, of course, are not identical to a vegetatively propagated
specimen of that variety. Folks who are into "wild" or native North
American gardening sometimes grow one of the prairie species like E.
pallida or E. paradoxa. These all make attractive plants and durable
garden specimens (assuming you've got anything like congenial growing
conditions), even if they lack the particular selling points of their
upmarket relations.

I do agree with the "varied results" part -- but I'm still curious
about what KIND of variation one might expect in the offspring of a
hybrid between, say, E. paradoxa and E. purpurea. The few hybrids that
I've actually seen in real life all have closely resembled one parent
or the other but NOT both, in terms of basic plant structure when not
in bloom. It seems quite possible to me that a stand of naturalized
seedlings would be rather an attractive and possibly quite striking
spectacle, in an informal or meadow setting perhaps, given the possible
range of colors that MIGHT arise (or might not).

So I guess, since nobody here seems actually to have tried this,
I'll raise a few dozen seedlings from the plant I suspect to the
'Sunrise' and we'll just see what comes of it.


--

Wundern kann es mich night, das unser Herr Christus mit Dernen
Gern und mit Sündern gelebt, geht's mir doch eben auch so.

I can't be surprised that our Lord, Jesus Christ, liked to hang out
With sinners and harlots.* That's how it is with me, too.
* -- Johann Wolfgang von Goethe, 1749-1832