when it all boils down.. price.. lol ...

it is NOT cost efficient to do a DNA test.. to find out if there REALLY IS ANY DIFFERENCE ...

so you are PROBABLY correct to GUESS.. they are basically the same thing ...

now.. if you got all 3.. and grew them out for 10 years.. i wouldnt be surprised that you MIGHT 'see' some minor differences.. simply because .. hosta being unstable.. one might suspect that the DNA wont be exactly the same ...

but really now.. who wants to waste 10 years.. and paying triple for them ... and for most of you ... waste the limited space on 3 lookalikes ....

try very hard.. to avoid the 'name collecting' game.. try to buy unique hosta ... rather than a name ... trust me.. been there.. done that.. wasted a lot of money on lookalikes ...

ken

+Ken, I'm one of the offenders here about the name game. However, my addiction focuses on the fragrant list put out by Don Rawson. I am now looking for the hybrids and not so much the sports, unless they are really really different. Having two similar fragrant hosta, I guess that is better than buying two of the same thing though.

When I got Itty Bitty and Pure Heart, I did not realize they were related to the Mouse family. Mine are very young, very small, and look nothing alike.

Add to the mix "Dancing mouse". Have you read Chris's http://www.perennialnursery.com/newsletter0113.html where he addresses this?

HE has some interesting things to say about these hosta.

Food for thought.

-Babka

Here is a link that might be useful: Mice

New names, that's how new hostas get sold. I MUST have also a lot of duplicates. For example, I have 43 differently named green hostas with yellow margin, not including the many blue/green with white margin. Looking into catalogs, there must be another 100 or more being offered right now. And I am still buying.... Bernd

+Ken, I'm one of the offenders here about the name game.

==>> offender??? why take that stance???

you have a goal.. based on don's list.. knock yourself out.. and dont feel guilty about it..

i wasnt speaking to you.. rather the newbie.. who might end up as i did.. having one goal .. which i didnt understand.. at the time.. was a 'name game' rather than collecting unique hosta ... and space is at the root of that ...

heck on some of these.. you could simply put 3 different labels.. and just take pix depending on which one you want a pic of.. lol ...

make any sense??

ken

I thought they where all the same. Just wanted to make sure I wasn't missing something obvious. Like different flower color or the like.

I'm not one to buy a new Hosta just because its a new name to add to my list. I've got to the point in my collection. I'm buying because it is something different then what I already have. Though I tend to love the small and mini ones better.

I have caught the mouse infestation bug and have 10 now. I have been going through Don_r's list of mice, Where I'am making a chart distinguishing the differences between those on the list and "trying" to map out a family tree noting who sported from whom. Once I am done with my research. I will post my finding for everyone. If anyone has information on this they think might be helpful to me. Please fell free to pass it along.

Jason

Jason, I give a link below to a site which has the family tree worked out for just about every sport (maybe not every hybrid), but it is a handy reference. And it might save you some time with the family tree....but the characteristics of each Mouse family member, that might be a nice feature to have available. Lots of Mouseketeers out there.

The section on Sports is one of many features at the web site. You will notice in the HostaLibrary.org a link to this site is at the top of (most) of the photo pages. That is another feature of the MyHostas.BE site....and somewhere there is a way to have photos side by side so you can compare the appearance of two different hosta. Not sure where that is, someone else can give you the link on that.

Good of you to share your sense of organization and inquisitive nature.

Here is a link that might be useful: My Hostas Index of SPORTS

I thought they where all the same. Just wanted to make sure I wasn't missing something obvious. Like different flower color or the like.

==>> well heck.. they might have different flowrs.. or different mature leaf shape ... etc . ... but until you SEE IT WITH YOUR OWN EYES ... presume they are duplicates ...

thats what it came down for me.. nothing new .. until i saw it in person ... which meant a lot of garden touring.. lol ..

just be leery of catalog shopping .. and the name game ... unless that is your goal..

and if your goal is to own every mouse.. so be it.. and you will be the expert.. in 5 years.. as to whether there are actual differences.. i could think of a lot of worse goals ... eh??

ken

As far as the ruffled Mouse Ears, I can speak for that one. Mrs. Mouse Ears was a sport I found at a local nursery. I named it and sent a picture to the Library. After that I noticed several others had been named by different people. They probably are all the same or very, very similar. Another plant that did this was the twisty sport of Orange Marmalade. I called mine Zap but there are other names for this one too.

McTavish, do you have a picture of what you call Zap....the "twisty sport of Orange Marmalade"? I take it you do not mean Forbidden Fruit? I have FF but notice no twisty stuff yet.

It must be exciting to find your very own sports. Having no background or history of observing hosta growing far and wide, I can only assume that what my hosta do is normal and proper for them, nothing sporty going on YET. As Ken pointed out, 3 photos of the same hosta can be as easily given 3 different names if the view is from a different angle.