Rick -

if you google the word "chimera" - you will find lots of stuff - start in Wikipedia. Basically one plant has 2 different genetic materials in a tissue. If you start it from a leaf - the new plant will come from the cell of of of these materials - so instead of a pinwheel pattern - you will get solid color blossoms. The only way to get the baby blooming true - if you get a sucker growing from a bud on the stem or a bloomstalk. So people who want to produce many of them - lop the top of the AV crown - and make the plant produce suckers all over the place.

Sometimes a bicolor AV mutates into a chimera - that's the only way to get a new chimera variety,

Since they are harder to propagate - they cost more to purchase.

irina