2.SHIMA-FU
3.AKEBONO-FU
4.NEGISHI-FU
5.NAKA-FU
6.TORA-FU
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7.GENPEI-FU
Clivias in Japan
Shigetaka Sasaki
Clivia generally means C.miniata in Japan. Other species, C.caulescens, C.gardenii, C.nobilis are not well known in the Japanese market. Most of the clivia enthusiasts find the beauty of C.miniata in its leaves; they have made efforts to breed a clivia with short & broad leaves. They call a strain of C.miniata with broad & short leaves "Daruma".
There are so many commercial names in the "Daruma" strain, according to subtle differences in their unique leaf shapes and variegations.
Japanese enthusiasts prefer the variegated C.miniata to the usual green one; they also prefer the dwarf shapes to the large one. I do not know muchl about the naming of "Daruma", Daruma is a small doll that is on sale at Buddhist temples as a symbol of happy fortune. According to some books, there was a monk called "Daruma" in old China, Japanese people made a round shaped statue taking after his image for worshiping him. I guess some people thought that the shape of C.miniata with round & short leaves looks like a "Daruma" doll in some ways, and then people got to call that type C.miniata the "Daruma" strain.
I will explain about variegation types. There are 7 types of variegation in Japan.
1.FUKURIN
2.SHIMA-FU
3.AKEBONO-FU
4.NEGISHI-FU
5.NAKA-FU
6.TORA-FU
7.GENPEI-FU
(FU, this word means “variegation” in Japanese language.)
7.TORA-FU means “Tiger Variegation”, because the variegation looks like stripes on tiger’s body. TORA-FU clivia named “TAIHOH” is well known to Japanese enthusiasts, but the variegation is caused by virus infection.
Japanese enthusiasts think that variegation like very thin strings is the best variegation, but it seems that a more vivid variegation is welcomed in other countries. 3.AKEBONO-FU is very popular among enthusiasts in Japan. Reproduction of the plants usually depends on dividing offsets, because we cannot get good AKEBONO seedlings easily. AKEBONO plants are still rare in Japan; therefore enthusiasts are keen on getting the plants.
AKEBONO plants with long & narrow leaves have been common for long times, and AKEBONO Daruma (short & broad leaf type) plants are not common. According to some clivia breeder, when breeders tried pollinating common AKEBONO plants by using Daruma strain’s pollen, most of the seedlings could not keep the vivid white color of AKEBONO variegation when they matured, and were not suitable for sale. Therefore AKEBONO Daruma plants are still uncommon.
I remember that Mr. & Mrs. Abel have raised AKEBONO plants from Nakamura seeds and recently one of them had a yellow flower. I think AKEBONO will be more popular all over the world in the future. In Japan, we prefer the Daruma strain ofclivia; we have to breed an AKEBONO Daruma that can keep a good variegation after it becomes mature.
It might be necessary for clivia breeders to breed better clivias which have a well- balanced attractiveness with both beautiful flowers & a good variegation in this century.
I think the Japanese favoring the dwarf C.miniata with variegation & unique leaf shape is related to the history of Japanese horticulture.
In the Edo period of Japan (1603 - 1867), gardening was at its height of enthusiasm. The range of enthusiasm was from the ordinary citizen to the ruler called "Shogun", all of them tried to collect various wild mutations and sell and buy the plants at expensive prices.
There are 2 plants upon which the Japanese model their clivias, one is "OMOTO"(Rhodea japonica roth) which belongs to the Liliaceae, the other is "FUHKIRAN"(Neofinetia faciata) which belongs to orchidaceae. The 2 species look like the "Daruma" strain in leaf shape, they have various kinds of variegation, and some of the commercial names of both plants are the same as "Daruma" strain clivias. There are so many points of appreciation in their leaf shapes and variegations. In the case of "FUHKIRAN", enthusiasts also find the beauty in their beautiful red or blue roots. The variety of leaf shape & variegation in "Daruma" strain does not seem to be more perfect than these 2 plants so far, I hope another new variegation like "AKEBONO" will appear and please clivia enthusiasts in the future.
As I told you just now, "Daruma" strain have been welcomed by Japanese enthusiasts of traditional plants, they have made a unique world of Japanese clivias, therefore, they have not focused on the flower. TWINS type C.miniata plants have been on sale at gardening shops for the last few years. They are called “GRANDIFLORA” in Japanese market. They are pretty small in size and fast to flower in 2 or 3 years from germination. They are useful for breeders because they do not need a large space and shorten the cultivation period, so it is needed to breed yellow one or variegated one in this strain. Actually, "yellow miniata" got to be common in these few years. I can say that people’s interest in a variety of flowers has just begun in Japan. Considering these situations, Mr. Nakamura must have been isolated in Japanese clivia market and had a long hardship for many years. He has dedicated himself to breed special clivia hybrids for about 20 years.
I think, his excellent breeding results have been based on "VICO Yellow"
Mr.Nakamura's breeding results based on "VICO Yellow"
There are already several articles which explain why Mr. Peter Smithers created this wonderful "VICO Yellow" and why the plant was introduced to Japan. So I will tell you the story in brief. Mr. Peter Smithers kindly sent the offset of "VICO Yellow" to Dr.Shuichi Hirao who was an innovative botanist in Japan; the plant had a flower in 1984. After Dr.Hirao's death, Mr.Nakamura received all of his collection including "Vico Yellow", and then he set to work on his new clivia breeding.
The reason why Mr.Nakamura used "VICO yellow" as a pollen plant is because it has special genetic personalities like below:
1. "VICO Yellow" hybrids will produce a large flower with good forms.
2. "VICO Yellow" hybrids will produce a well-reversed petal.
3. "VICO Yellow"'s pollen has a good ability for pollination. It is easy to bear berries in the case of using "VICO Yellow"'s pollen.
I will introduce you 4 typical Nakamura hybrids that are good samples for above 3 points.
"CHIBA
Orange" and "CHIBA Yellow"
These 2 plants both have a characteristic that they have a large flower. He said that "CHIBA Orange" is a largest flower of his hybrids. The flower size is as three times as a usual C.miniata. The petals are reversed very well by the genetic influence of "VICO Yellow". "CHIBA Yellow"'s outer petals are more reversed than "VICO Yellow"; the total flower form looks more sophisticated than "VICO Yellow".
"Waved-Petal
Yellow" and "Rolled-Petal Orange"
I named these 2 plants "Waved-Petal Yellow" and "Rolled-Petal Orange" after their flower forms, by way of experiment.
"Waved-Petal Yellow" has a very unique flower form with playful spirits, it might be interesting to create "Waved-Veined-Petal" clivia, "Waved-petal with red tips" clivia, and "Waved-petal Peach"clivia and so on.
"Rolled-Petal Orange" has a too unique flower form; it might be difficult to get applause from all the people. However, this plant also has one of possibilities for the progress of flower forms. If one makes hybrids between "Rolled-Petal Orange" and C.gardenii, C.caulescense or C.nobilis, there might be extremely unique hybrids.
He always says that "VICO Yellow"'s pollen has a good ability for pollinating other clivias, but the seeds from "VICO Yellow"'s pollen tend to be of a large size, we cannot anticipate a good quantity of harvest from "VICO Yellow"'s pollination.
The next photo is one of "VICO Yellow" hybrids, which I obtained from Mr.Nakamura's greenhouse about a month ago. This flower is bred by {(orange x yellow) x VICO Yellow}. When you use "VICO Yellow"' pollen only once, it is possible by high percentage to get a good flower like this photo, with twice size as usual miniata, also with good rolled and waved petals.
One problem is that "VICO Yellow" hybrids are pretty large sized plants same as "VICO Yellow". When I think about Japanese clivia market, the next goal of "VICO Yellow" hybrids is to create dwarf leafed hybrids or multi-petal hybrids based on these special "VICO Yellow" hybrids.
I would like to introduce Mr.Nakamura's interspecific hybrids to you.
His
F1 hybrids of (C.miniata x C.gardenii) are called "Candoll"; this
name was inspired from "Christmas Candle" because they usually begin
to flower at Christmas time.
These hybrids have tubular orange flowers, the flowers are half-erect from the stem (it is because of C.miniata's influence), some have open flowers, some have pale orange petals, some have green tips on the petals (it is because of C.gardenii's influence), they show a certain range of mutations.
He mostly used orange miniata as a mother plant of "Candoll", therefore, the plants often show the flowers in which anthocyanin is superior to chlorophyll on petals. If you pollinate yellow miniata with gardenii's pollen, it is possible to create a new "Candoll" with strong green tips on petals. I would like to share with you the additional information about interspecific hybrids; they show a slight white stripe on the center of leaf. Mr.Nakamura told me that this stripe is one of characteristics of interspecific hybrids, not only in the case of (miniata x gardenii).
His F1 hybrids of (C.miniata x C.caulescens) mostly show pendulous flowers, the genetic influence of C.caulescens seems to be stronger than C.miniata's in this case. It seems that the characteristic of C.caulescens also appears on the tip of their leaves.
There
is a F1 hybrid called "Day Dream"{(orange miniata x yellow miniata) x
(C.caulescence x yellow miniata)}. This plant shows very excellent pendulous
flowers, we can also recognize a characteristic of C.caulescens on its leaves.
The flowers are quite open compared with other interspecific hybrids, inside of
petals is green at the beginning, then changes its color to yellow. I am not
certain how he created that a good flower, but it really stands out, it is the
one with very high quality.
In
addition, he has created hybrids of which the flowers look like C.miniata. He
tried breeding hybrids by using cobalt 60 before, he created
"CHIBAZAKURA" in the end, this plant has so many umbels like a ball,
the flower color is slightly orange, may be it is because of the influence of
cobalt 60.
I was able to see a totally white flower when I had visited Mr.Nakamura's greenhouse in February of last year. The flower was small size and not well open, the bottom was strong green, actually it was an interspecific hybrid. He said its color changes from strong green to totally white, then slight red appears on the tips in the end. It means this is not a perfect white flower and contains a bit of anthocyanin. Regarding this fact, I can refer to Mr.Wessel Lotter's comments about the genetic dilution of anthocyanin in his article of CLIVIA YEARBOOK 1998. So it is possible to create a totally white flower by interspecific hybridization.
It
seems that one of Nakamura hybrids called "Veined Petal" was bred by
crossing orange miniata with yellow miniata. F1 hybrid between “Veined Petal”
and yellow miniata will produce both pigmented and unpigmented seedlings, but I
think pigmented seedlings will grow to have more interesting flowers.
Besides,
he has created a "Super Multi-Petal" flower, which is a chimerical
plant of multi-petal and has 40 - to 50 petals, he also created a "Folded
Petal" flower of which stamens are attached to inner petals.
Mr.Nakamura is very interested in Chinese people's enthusiasm for clivias, however their interest is mainly based on leaf shapes and total forms so far. He often says, if their interest will go to a variety of flowers, they will communicate more with South Africa , clivia's homeland, U.S.A. and Australia , advanced countries in clivia breeding, then the popularity of clivias will rise in the future. That is his dream. He sometimes visits China and provides Chinese breeders with his various clivia collections; he has made continuous efforts in reporting wonderful information of clivias to the Chinese people.
Finally, I would like to share with you 2 articles written by Japanese botanists. Both articles explain about the pigment "anthocyanin" which I am most interested in these days.
One is from a report "Analysis of pigmentation in C.miniata" written by Professor Takao Matsuno.(from “Garden Life” issued in December, 1980)
-----As the result of analysis, I can say as follows. Orange miniata contains pelargonidin (which is one of the anthocyanidin pigments) and carotinoid, on the other hand, yellow miniata contains only carotinoid. In other words, orange miniata contains red pigment and yellow pigment. Please refer to the following data. The content of pigment is expressed by (μg/g).
Anthocyanidin of commercial miniata : 21.4 of wild miniata A : 26.5
of wild miniata B : 20.2 of yellow miniata : 0
Carotinoid of commercial miniata : 21.4 of wild miniata A : 35.6
of wild miniata B : 24.6 of yellow miniata : 16.0
According to above data, orange miniata contains both pigments equally or some plant contains more carotinoid than anthocyanidin. However, yellow miniata contains no anthocyanidin, in addition contains less carotinoid compared with the case of orange miniata. There are so many kinds of anthocyanidin which make factors of red, pink or purple colors, some plants contains several anthocyanidin pigments. C.miniata contains only pelargonidin, it is possible to make flower color variation from just pelargonidin, but we cannot anticipate purple or blue flower unless there is a sudden mutation.
There are so many kinds of carotinoid, carrot contains βcarotene, yellow ginkgo leaf contains lutein. C.miniata contains both carotinoids as follows.
commercial miniata lutein : 61%, βcarotene : 13%
wild miniata lutein : 68 - 70%, βcarotene : 12%
yellow miniata lutein : 61%, βcarotene : 9%
According to above data, a plant with less carotinoids will show a whiter flower, a plant with more carotinoids will show a more yellow flower. C.miniata also contains other carotinoids; they might be half generation of carotinoids.
Another article is from a book named "Hana No Iro No Nazo”(The Mystery of Flower Color) written by Dr. Hitoshi Yasuda.(published in April, 1976 )
----The process of generating various kinds of anthocyanin is as follows. At first, some gene generates orange colored pelargonidin type anthocyanin; we call it gene B. Gene B is essential for generating pelargonidin type anthocyanin. Then we suppose gene C that is essential for generating red colored cyanidin type anthocyanin. Gene C generates cyanidin type anthocyanin from pelargonidin type anthocyanin. Then we suppose gene D, gene D generates purple - blue colored delphinidin type anthocyanin. Without gene D, purple - blue colored pigment is not generated from cyanidin type anthocyanin. The genetic superiority of flower color is as following order in the nature, orange - red - purple - blue. It means that pelargonidin type is superior to cyanidin type; cyanidin type is superior to delphinidin type.
I understand my idea is far from reality, but I would like to suggest that we can try to make a sudden mutation from pelargonidin of C.miniata by using cobalt 60 or chemical treating, then we might get a possibility of breeding blue clivias, it might lead us to get another direction for extending a range of flower color of clivias.
I am not a clivia specialist, I am just one of clivia enthusiasts and my breeding ability is limited. But as one of enthusiasts who believe in the possibility of "Clivia", I would like to put my breeding ideas into practice and cooperate with other clivia lovers. I wonder if I can create just 1 new flower so that I can share the joy with all of clivia lovers.
(Translation:
Masashi Yamaguchi, Revision: Nicholas Primich)
BEST GHOST
