Your best chances of crosses are with new world to new world species, and old world to old world species. If you do succeed in crossing old with new, there is a graduate student at Michigan State who would be very interested in the results.

You won't know if you've succeeded until the hybrid blooms. Some hybrids will tell you right out of the box when you see the first true leaves. They often start out looking like one parent then develop towards the other. One parent's traits will tend to dominate at one pole of an extreme (such as temperature or day length) and the other parent at the opposite pole. I think this is mostly true for F1 hybrids.

Having surface sown 5 seeds on the "wrong end" of small rockwool cubes moistened with gibberellin 100 ppm water, at least 3 have sprouted on each cube other than the Argentea - no sprouting yet.

Any comments about the flowering conditions of any of the species I listed ... or germination of the Argentea appreciated! At 2 weeks, patience is my strategy with the Argentea.

Sorry for being late on this conversation.I have seen a
coccinea x splendens hybrid.It looked like a coccinea
but was shorter w/bigger flowers,sterile too with no
frost tolerance. Don't let that stop you! There are endless combinations with these plants. I have only done a little
hybridizing here in Texas.Mostly greggii, microphylla
lyciodes hybrids, darcyi hybrids I just keep trying for a
blue greggii or microphylla . I don't know if there is such a thing as a tetraploid salvia but your on the right track making sure you have the chromosome count.Keep us posted on your results and conclusions. Please keep records that will help a lot too. Art Petley

For those interested, go to the U of Wisconsin site for chromosome numbers.

Given the polyploidy of guaraniticas and the known hybrids, you might get triploids, which is probably why guaranitica x gesneriflora `Tequila' (Purple Majesty) is sterile.

Here is a link that might be useful: Salvia Research Network - Cytology

It just shows my ignorance - I had assumed that all Salvias would have the same chromasome count. I presumed that similar chromasomes was one of the things that put all the Salvias into the same genus.

Are you saying that only species with similiar numbers could hybridise and that disimilar numbers could never hybridise?

Hybrids with parents of different chromosome counts are possible, but will be sterile. If you make a tetraploid of this, you will balance out the count to even, with one side being A + B, and the other B + A, and get a new plant which will set seed. So doubling the chromosomes of Purple Majesty or Indigo Spires would probably make them seed bearing again.

It is very unlikely that New World and Old World sages will cross with one another. See the Salvia Research Network for details on this.

Thanks Rich - that's most interesting.