Yes it is! I need to put a thicker wick on it because it keeps failing to draw and dries out. But the plant doesn't care, doesn't even wilt. Happy as a clam. That is easy.

It is hybrid between Sinningia hirsuta and Sinningia kautskyi. S.hirsuta is not easy and much slower to grow - I think I still have it in my hoard - and S.kautskyi supposedly requires 100% humidity and a major challenge to grow.

I just got to sort my Kohlerias I didn't repot for over a year... jungle, tangle and bleached labels. I can as well chuck the mess off. No name disaster.

Yup! A good while back I found this information about Sinningia 'Amizade':

This easy to grow and flower hybrid has been widely distributed under the name of Sinningia kautskyi x Sinningia hirsuta. Two hybridizers, Mauro Peixoto of Brazil and David Zaitlin of the United States, separately produced and distributed the hybrid. As the plants from the two sources are indistinguishable, all are now referred to as S. 'Amizade', which is Portuguese for friendship.

However, if you look at photos closely, it seems that the US plants usually have only one lower petal being white, and the European version seems to have all three lower petals white. So I wouldn't say they are quite indistinguishable, unless that particular trait is variable. Which does yours display, Irina?

Oh no! Yes, I fear if you have kohlerias that look much alike and would be hard to tell apart, pitching them and starting over may be wise. I am so sorry, Irina! I don't like anything that looks too similar so I'm only collecting those that are really different from one another. If labels get lost, I should have no trouble telling them apart when they bloom. My only exceptions to that rule are two of my streps. 'Bristol's Waterbug' and 'Bristol's Cat Dance' are more or less identical flowers, but one hybrid grows larger than the other.

One lower petal white. Hirsuta is all white.

I think one cross was hirsuta x kautskyi - another - kautskyi x hirsuta.

I don't know. I only know what I quoted from that one source on this cultivar.

I think somebody in a G-society told me...

Are you going to a Convention? I am going to drive there.

I will eventually but I'm not going to any this year, no. Too busy packing to move and relocate before our son has to start back to school in early August. I did hit a spring show in Atlanta back in May, and went to the Dixie AVSA Convention in Atlanta back in March of 2016. I hope I can go to next year's AVSA Convention and maybe the GS one too.

Next years's AVSA Convention is to be in NY so I hope I can drive up in the van and also visit the Violet Barn and Lyndon Lyons in the same trip! Whoo hooo!

Next year G-convention will be Boston.. I have very many AV friends but Gesneriad Conventions are much more interesting. So many new things to learn - plus people travel all over the tropical world and tell about new gessies.

I think it would be a lot more interesting but harder for me to go. I'm told they only allow you to take up to 50 sales plants and therefor I have little hope of covering the expenses of the trip if I can't take and sell more plants than that. So we'll see whether or not I have the money to burn. I have a lot of clients up in the NY area though that would surely be happy to come by my hotel room and pick up sales plants.

OMG - they ask you to bring NO LESS than 50 plants. Think about rhizomes and tubers. This year since Omaha is far from both coasts they dropped the minimum to 10.

Well, I'll check and see if I can go next year. Right now I'm in the midst of packing and moving and we are on a time deadline so no traveling for me for now. ;) But I have been told by more than one person who goes that sales were absolutely limited to not more than 50 plants per person. I was like .. wtf? But I was told it was a space issue and due to how the plants are grouped by kind, not by vendor. I'd be delighted if it turns out I could bring a lot more than that.

I think the way it goes - they do not want people bring 1 -2-3 because it is a nightmare with counting and sending checks afterwards.

I heard this year in Orlando Rob run out of plants first day - just packed and left. Paul Sorano' s plants were pretty much picked over too.

I think if you have rhizomes and tubers to sell - we can do something about it - you can either ship them to me - or ask Kathy Spissman. You need to price and label them - if you still have time during your move. You probably do not.

No, actually it was more a conversation about my bringing several hundred at least. The conversation could not possibly have been confused as my bringing only a few. This said conversation being with several others who go and sell plants every year. We were having this conversation at the Dixie AVSA Convention in Atlanta. I think it was Mel Grice and Kathy Spissman, and several others are the ones who told me about the limit on sales plants not to exceed 50 per person. I'll email the GS to ask though since it's always possible the limits may have changed.

I bet they were! I would have loved to have seen what they'd brought. I do like that they let people who paid to go get first pick. ;)

I did want to take my extra corytoplectus cutucuensis. No extra tubers, etc. It's no matter. I'm sure Kathy has enough to pack. Next year is soon enough! Thank you for the thought.

You will not be able to sell several hundred - if there is only 145 people registered. Rhizomes and tubers are easy to carry on the plane. You probably will be able to sell 15 Corytoplectus if they are not too big but already show the patterning. Boston will be more people showing - even for a day or 2. I am thinking that there is some similarity and some difference on what people are interested at the sale on the AV and G conventions. On G conventions people are more interested in new species, less in new hybrids and even less in in middle age hybrids - but then old and rare kicks in.

Hyn - you brought me luck. I was working through the big box of old rhizomes and tubers I didn't have time since last year. Rhizomes naturally dried up. But big tubers are still alive. I found an egg size tuber of Sinningia hirsuta. Woo-hoo! With new growth!!!

That makes sense about the GS Convention and what people may be interested in buying. I do have a number of species but naturally my interest in hybridizing lends most of my collection in that direction.

Oh, that is good news! Hopefully you'll find more! I don't have anything in storage that way - either it's actively growing or I'm actively trying to coax it into growing. Some things do need to rest briefly so I check those now and then to see if they have rotted. I sure wish my Ozark Coral Freckles would freak'n grow.

Next time hopefully you will make it - to Boston. I always bring tubers and rhizomes for sale - and leftovers go to a local club. I think if you bring your new hybrids - and hopefully enter blooming plants in a Show for better exposure - they will fly. When you decide that some of your hybrids are worth naming - please consider registering them with Gesneriad Society - it is free - just fill the form and send me a good size photo by email.

http://www.gesneriadsociety.org/registered-gesneriads/

Irina, the Registrar.

PS All big tubers survived. The biggest is Sinningia speciosa 'Pedra Lisa' - over a pound. But I lost my Eucodonias.

Oh, I will, definitely. If I ever really have anything worth registering. I really like the GS and they are so much better structured in some ways than the AVSA. I chat with tons of people on Facebook who register their streps and am on several hybridizer groups.

Speaking of, I also ran into the International Hibiscus Society online and they have the most amazing link where you put in a hybrid's name and it pops up that plants genealogy with photos of the ancestor plants! I think something like this for gesneriads and African violets would be awesome:

http://www.internationalhibiscussociety.org/SEArchive/index1.php?Search_box=Tabasco%20Fire

Good news about your tubers! I am glad, though I am sorry you lost others. ;/ I had some leaf pots I lost track of that I'd hung up along the back edge of one of my lowest shelving rack shelves. I found them /14 months/ later and dang if every one of those weren't still alive and all of them made babies. I was shocked! Sealed up in their little baggies - they'd finally started to dry out but I salvaged them. I was rather amazed!

If ever such genealogy pages could be assembled for the GS or AVSA you can bet we could probably get tons of people to donate photos to use. I'd be happy to let my photos be used for such a project.

There is guy Brad Walker in TN who created a Sinningia genealogy on his own. Hector Wong from Hawaii is working on AV genealogy - but AVSA is not releasing the records - the parentage is a secret - and they stick to their rules. I guess the secrecy was very important in the beginning.

I'm familiar with what Hector is doing. We chat on FB and I'm on some of those groups. There are a ton of hybridizers that think their crosses are and should be kept secret. I don't know why since recreating those hybrids with the same crosses would generally be very difficult unless they were species maybe. But why bother? But to each their own. I happen to think the transparency is healthier but clearly others feel threatened by it.

Yup - Hector is very passionate about it - and he tries to work with what our current hybridizers give him. But - I do not think you can reproduce exactly the same extinct hybrid. Will be close - but not it - otherwise all sisters in the same family would be identical...and the parents today are not the same as the originals - the incessant cloning led to genetic drift as well.

Regarding the secrecy - there was an article about first double pink AV "Ohio Bountiful" in March 2016 AV magazine - the hybridizer sold it to the big nursery for $1000 - which is 10 times more now - and built his first greenhouse. I bet at that point it was very important.

Oh I agree you can't get the exact hybrid cross ever. But you could get pretty close if it were something basic like crossing two species plants. Close enough people might not be able to tell the difference. Sinningia 'Amizade' is an example of that. But it's much less likely if the parents have multiple generations of crosses behind them. So you aren't telling me anything I don't already know in that regard.

Yup, I am here with you. It is a fact that it would be useful to have a genetic info available on all hybrids so you do not do your crossings blind... but it is not going to happen in AV world in all entirety. Too bad.

Not everybody is as sharing and nurturing to the new hybridizers as Dale Martens. And not all top winners in a Show world is sharing their growing secrets, but more so nowadays. I talked to a friend who was on a top of AV Shows in 80s - and he says that at that time people often guarded their winning secrets in a very tight way.