The mysterious Mini Pearl

16 years ago

File under: Things that make you go "hmmmm....."

I've had Neo. Mini Pearl for several years now, but I've always been a bit put off by its little quirks. For one thing, it has a tendency to quill, and the growth is rather erratic. Pups from the same plant grown under the same conditions may develop quite different forms:

For another thing, in all the years I've had it, I never saw a bloom. I even tried treating one last year to force it to bloom, but it refused. You may wonder why I even bothered, but I'm trying to breed some small, brightly-colored Neos, and MP has all of the typical carolinae traits in a small package (grows in a 5" pot). It didn't seem to want to cooperate, though, so I gave up on that idea.

Well, this year, for the first time ever, they suddenly decided to bloom, and with no coaxing from me. This was taken back in June:

So far, so good. We had a slightly cooler than normal winter, and it apparently triggered flowering on a number of things that don't ordinarily bloom for me. Makes sense. The other day, though, I was looking at the bloomed-out plants...

...and I noticed something odd. While most of the old inflorescences have turned brown and mushy in typical non-selfer fashion...

...on a single plant it appears that all of the flowers have self-pollinated:

I didn't pollinate any of them! Now, I did use that one plant as a pollen parent, so it's possible that the act of removing its pollen may have inadvertantly pollinated it, but not every flower. I didn't do that many crosses with it, so what the heck is going on here? If I only had that one specimen, I'd be telling people it's a selfer, but the majority say otherwise. In addition, MP is supposedly a cv. of carolinae, and carolinaes are generally self-incompatible, so I don't know what to think.

As if that wasn't weird enough, a closer inspection showed another odd occurence. One of the pups has two centers:

I've occasionally seen mature plants develop two inflorescences in the center, but I think this is the first time I've seen a pup splitting in two before flowering.

All in all, Ms. Pearl seems like a girl who enjoys breaking all the rules. I wonder if her offspring will do the same?

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Comments (7)

bromadams
16 years ago
Hmmm, Mini Pearl: cv. of 'Meyendorffii' - Tiny to 8" across in the tight stacked classical 'Meyendorffii' form - green w/red flush and pearly glazed - red tips.

Lisa are you sure about the carolinae?
LisaCLV
Original Author
16 years ago
"Meyendorffii - A strain or cultivar of carolinae which will reproduce sexually - Smaller, with wider leaves than the type species - usually full symmetrical dense rosette w/wide arching bayonet tipped leaves - red center at anthesis."

So yes, I'm sure, but that business about reproducing sexually does cast a new light on things. Not sure if they mean by self-pollination or not.
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vriesea
16 years ago
Hi Lisa ,thats most interesting ,are you going to grow some of the selfings to see how true to type they will be ?it seems a bit odd that the pups develop different forms yet looking at the flowered plants they seem to settle down again ,and why would the one plant self and not the rest ? the more we learn the less we know ,it will be interesting to see what the offspring will do. in itself its a very tidy plant indeed ,well best of luck ,Jack
LisaCLV
Original Author
16 years ago
I'm not sure if I'll grow any of them out, Jack. I suppose I should, just to see how true they'd be. I'm so tight on space these days that I try to limit my "curiosity grexes", but I always seem to have a few going anyway.

They didn't really "settle down", it's just that the ones with the tight, miniaturized form tend to be the ones that eventually quill. The ones that bloomed are all ones that started out with larger leaves. Too bad, I like the petite form better.
kerry_t_australia
16 years ago
Hmmmm....indeed, Lisa! Good story and strange for sure - thanks for the recount. I've never seen a pup-doubler like that before, either. I'd be keen to see how it develops.

M.P. is a lovely little neo, with all its idiosyncracies to boot.

K :)
LisaCLV
Original Author
16 years ago
Update: I checked the berries, and they're all blanks! Not a single seed in any of the ones I pulled out. Curiouser and curiouser.......

I was kind of expecting not very many seeds in each one, just because of the circumstances and their general appearance. All it takes is a single seed to trigger fruit formation. It's not the first time I've seen blanks either. Some Aechmeas, Bills, etc. regularly form berries with nothing inside. What I don't get is why this one plant did that and not the rest. The only thing I can think of is that the act of fiddling with the flowers to remove the anthers must have tricked it into thinking it was going to be a mommy when it wasn't. Leave it to MP to have a hysterical pregnancy!
neomea
16 years ago
Hey Lisa

Two of my variegata red hybrids did the same thing...looked like they were full of seed (not by my hand)but there were zero seeds to be found.

A mate had a Neo Betty-Head make a siamese twin like in your pic, as the plants matured the spit and grew normally...