Julie, that is a gorgeous flower!! How disappointing that it is virused.

II'm waiting to hear what the white brings to the color table as well. I made a cross between a large noid white and tres chic/pretty woman hoping for the nelsonii coloring with a larger flower size. Have a couple of years to go before we find out how successful that cross will be though lol. Jody

Good luck with your cross, Jody. Whatever turns out, I'm sure it will be most interesting!

I'm mainly selfing here at the moment due to the virus situation.

Of course, the ones I have under screen can be crossed together as virus is confirmed on all of them...so no harm done. But the clean ones out in the garden I will not purposely cross-pollinate- just in case. I know the bees will do some of that for me anyway, but I would rather keep it at a minimum for the next few years, and watch them all to make sure no latent virus turns up amongst them. It is very hard to keep a clean collection!

I have no great understanding of cross-breeding, beyond the obvious, so I suspect with selfing- at least for me- it is a numbers game, and the more seedlings grown, the greater the chance of finding something similar...as well as maybe discovering something completely new and wonderful in it's own right!

......but then again, it would be disappointing to grow thirty or so seedlings, and not have one of them turn up similar.......

I wonder if yellowish and greenish hippeastrum are more prone to virus? Most of the bulbs in my collection that are showing signs of virus are yellow/green flowers- Lemon Lime and Yellow Garden (klister type) are both affected. One bulb out of about a dozen small Chico offsets is also affected. I suspect Graffiti might be, but I haven't seen obvious signs (the bulbs have offset, but never bloomed).