Begonia of the Week #3
B. 'Sierra Mountain King' is a rather small cane-like begonia (up to three feet in height) displaying enormous, pendulous bloom clusters with very fuschia-like flowers in pink and white. As you can see, each bloom is almost as long as my finger.
This is a very showy cane that doesn't get huge, so it's great as a patio plant in summer and a houseplant in winter for the northern growers. It's a Cynthia Bishop hybrid (maculata x lubbersii).
This is what's known as a primary cross, which is a hybrid formed by crossing two species, in this case, the two Brazilian species, maculata and lubbersii, both discovered in the 1800's. Every spotted cane begonia that you see can be traced back to B. maculata. You will always get very similar plants by crossing two species, whereas species-hybrid crosses, or hybrid-hybrid crosses, can produce an almost endless number of different results from the same seed pod, depending upon the genetic variation contained in the hybrid. Some are better parents than others, and some are sterile.
This was one of my favorite canes, but the hurricanes blew it away. I'll find another one some day.
posted by Elizabeth at 11:36 AM
1 Comments:
It's a great plant done by Cindy Bishop in 2000 or so. She hybridized about 30 begonias and almost all her names start with 'Sierra.' I knew her when she lived on a farm on the eastern foothill suburbs of Sacramento and was a member of the Sacramento Begonia Society. Interestingly, she was a cousin of Tim Anderson, an even more prolific begonia hybridizer who owned the Palm Hammock Orchid Estate in Miami. Many of his hybrids start with the word 'Deco.'
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