My hollyhocks have just started blooming.
On one, it has very dark red flowers, almost black. Yet on the same stem and
next to the 'black' flowers are pale pink blooms.
Is this a common phenomena or have I stumbled upon a get rich quick variant?

mark

In message , mark
writes
My hollyhocks have just started blooming.
On one, it has very dark red flowers, almost black. Yet on the same stem and
next to the 'black' flowers are pale pink blooms.
Is this a common phenomena or have I stumbled upon a get rich quick variant?

mark

"Black" hollyhocks (f. nigra) are reasonably well known. What you
probably have is a sectoral chimaera - the cell ancestral to part of the
plant mutated, disabling the gene responsible for pigment production,
resulting in paler blooms.

Even if you could propagate hollyhocks vegetatively, sectoral chimaeras
are unstable, as I found when trying to propagate a variegated sport of
Lavatera 'Barnsley'. They don't come true from seed - if you collected
seed you'd get a black-flowered and pink-flowered plants, but not one
with mixed flowers.
--
Stewart Robert Hinsley

"Stewart Robert Hinsley" wrote in message
...
In message , mark
writes
My hollyhocks have just started blooming.
On one, it has very dark red flowers, almost black. Yet on the same stem
and
next to the 'black' flowers are pale pink blooms.
Is this a common phenomena or have I stumbled upon a get rich quick
variant?

mark

"Black" hollyhocks (f. nigra) are reasonably well known. What you probably
have is a sectoral chimaera - the cell ancestral to part of the plant
mutated, disabling the gene responsible for pigment production, resulting
in paler blooms.

Even if you could propagate hollyhocks vegetatively, sectoral chimaeras
are unstable, as I found when trying to propagate a variegated sport of
Lavatera 'Barnsley'. They don't come true from seed - if you collected
seed you'd get a black-flowered and pink-flowered plants, but not one with
mixed flowers.
--
Stewart Robert Hinsley

Thanks Stewart. I'll not give up me paper round just yet.

mark

In article , Stewart Robert Hinsley
writes
Even if you could propagate hollyhocks vegetatively, sectoral chimaeras
are unstable, as I found when trying to propagate a variegated sport of
Lavatera 'Barnsley'. They don't come true from seed - if you collected
seed you'd get a black-flowered and pink-flowered plants, but not one
with mixed flowers.
--
Stewart Robert Hinsley


I was told some time ago that with variegated plants you can get the
variegation reversed by taking root rather than stem cuttings. I think
it was Aubrey thingy from Hopleys who told us that.

Janet
--
Janet Tweedy
Dalmatian Telegraph
http://www.lancedal.demon.co.uk