by jgh » May 31, 2008 6:46 am Back in "the old days" - like the sixties and seventies - you could depend on every science fair having at least one project based on irradiated seeds. A kid would have a parent or family friend who was a doctor or dentist and they'd take a packet of seeds, divide them in half, then send one half through a dose of X-rays. The results were rarely interesting, but once in a while you'd actually get a seed that was both mutated and still viable enough to grow into something. Most often you either got no effect or seeds that wouldn't germinate or would perform poorly.
There was a novel written - The Effect of X-rays On Man-In-The-Moon Marigolds - that really had pretty much nothing to do with horticulture or science projects.
The first story I heard about Embroidery was that it was the result of such experimentation on hosta seeds. It seems to me that if somebody actually did this, we'd be able to find out what kind of seeds and when it was done... and we'd see lots more unusual leaf formations and distortions.
Zilis makes no mention of this story - and he notes seeing the original plant in Paul Aden's garden all the way back in 1983, about the time Aden registered it. I think we have to assume this is one of those stories that developed... like someone made the comment "It looks so wierd... like it got zapped by radiation or something" that became "fact."
Still, with all the information - Zilis gives Embroidery its own entry and one and a half pages - we aren't given any information about its heritage. This is particularly irritating as Embroidery tends to sport into a smooth-leaved, large, elegant plant named Green Velveteen. After years of fighting to keep the plain Jane sports from taking over the (quite expensive) Embroidery, I found that the removed sections grow vigorously and I quite like them. I would like to know what Green Velveteen might compare with in terms of species and cultivar parentage.
But I digress!
What's the big deal with Embroidery? Why, after 25 years, is it still (by my standards) quite expensive?
Zilis describes it this way:
"in spring, margins slightly darker than the center into which it often streaks; center turns medium green by mid-June; very unruly with the leaf margins twisted and corrugated i streaks while the leaf center (usually) remains smooth except for an occasional streak of corrugation..."
He notes that this is one of the plants that is very difficult to tissue culture... apparently if you tc Embroidery you end up with a bunch of Green Velveteen plants. He doesn't say why, but later in the book under the Tortifrons entry he notes "Evidently, the leaf distortion seen in 'Tortifrons' is caused by the same type of epidermal chimera that prevents 'Embroidery' and a few others from being accurately propagated by tissue culture.
Assuming that I actually knew what an epidermal chimera is - to me it sounds like some kind of spa treatment or maybe a new hybrid car - I would still have some hesitation about this explanation. There are a couple of other hostas with odd corrugation in the mid-leaf... I'd put Emerald Necklace and Mary Marie Ann in that category - and as far as I know, they tissue culture just fine. I think the same is true of Tortifrons. Who knows?
In any case, since we are getting more Embroidery's by the good old-fashioned vegetative propagation way, the price stays up over $40.
I can't help but wonder what happened to the old Shady Oaks Retail Embroidery plants. When they closed out and lots of us bought lots of really fine hostas really cheap from Lyndale Garden Center, one famous hosta breeder snapped up the entire supply of Embroidery before they made it to the store shelves... estimates ranged from 50 - 200 plants... for $1.99. If memory serves, this was back about 2002. I was sure we'd see the market flooded with their progeny along with a price drop, but the Hosta Finder for 2007 shows everybody holding the price around $40. Perhaps the gentleman did the market a favor by taking them all instead of sending lots of them out into individual gardens... I know I had a few wholesale plants growing into market size that I thought would lose their value, but it never happened.
Anyway... what else??? Oh, yeah - the pictures! This plant was much larger, but started to sport dramatically to Green Velveteen. I removed the sport last summer... and though small, I think this is a pretty good specimen of a cultivar that reminds me of myself - "odd, ugly, but loveable!"
Funny thing I have a greenie hit by frost that looks very close to the pictures. Anyway for $40 I would rather have 2 nice ones. Thanks so much for posting the daily shots! I enjoy the narrative just as much as the pictures !!
Made the rest very expensive, and when I tried to call and talk to them about this and some other issues I was amazed to get bumped from one voicemail to another without any return call.
Mockingbird feeding juvenile yellow raisons - never leave home without them.
