Nice

Nope, never heard of it.

hmmmm, wonder what other violet don't I know about??? lol Rosie

Boring???

Hold on to your hat everyone,,,,,I have seen the flower and although I LIKE it,,,,,,I don't want to OWN it !!!!!!! If it was gifted to me I would not throw it away but it would not be one of my favorites.

Irina you chose a good word for it,,,,,,BORING!!!!!! Didn't see that coming, did ya? Rosie

Honesty is good. And yes not what we were expecting to hear from you Rosie! ;) Still, if you ever want to grow 'boring' looking plain blue/purple violets there /are/ some that are REALLY worth growing! Those are the original species plants, some of which are trailers. Those have their very own flavour of excitement. I've tried several and liked them but now I have seriously downsized I have to admit that I no longer have them.

HaHa!!! I knew you all would be shocked!!! And you know me. I love 'em all!!!!

Are you familiar with Optimara Elfriede??? Nothing spectacular. Green leaves and purple flowers. She is an old variety but I really would like to have another leaf. Had her back in the 60's and she is for me a pleasant memory! Another of my favorite memories is White Madonna.
One of my first violets. Again,,,,green leaves white flower, but geeze I love her!! Rosie

I saw someone post a photo of White Madona in flower just the other day on Facebook. I imagine you could hunt that one down and maybe both and private message the owners to arrange for leaves. You do know how to do searches on Facebook forums to bring up topics in the archives, yes? On the left side of each Facebook group is a search box. Input the plant's name there and hit enter and it will search for every post of that topic in that forum.

So if you go search up 'White Madona' on say African Violet Addicts, or African Violet Nerds groups, you'll see who has (or had) it and might be in the USA. PM them and ask about leaves and you may get lucky. That is how I have tracked down a few of my most wanted plants. People are very often willing to share if you are polite and willing to send them things from your collection to trade. It's a great way to get plants without having to spend anything but shipping, too.

You may also do general Facebook searches on any given plant. It'll bring up public posts from any group in that case. You do that in the search box at the top of Facebook. I find these searches particularly useful if I am looking for photos of any particular plant I am considering for purchase. Often the hybridizer or seller's photos aren't ... really representative of how the flower often blooms under /other/ growing conditions. It's more a show of the ideal. If everyone else's photos of that same plant aren't nearly as stunning then I'll take a pass. General 'Google' searches may bring up few examples but searches on Facebook often bring up lots of images that aren't 'Google' accessable.

Trading and or postage is my favorite way of finding plants! The only thing is, I don't have face book. I don't use a phone like most people do. My phone is so old it won't support facebook! Or anything else. I will have one eventually! I mean White Madonna, not facebook! lol Rosie

I don't do Facebook through my phone. Not usually, only rarely. I access it through my laptop like I do here. Anyway, you might consider a FB account just because of the huge wealth of information there in the various plant discussion boards. I would caution about sharing too much personal information because FB does get hacked sometimes. Other people cruise FB for identity theft so keeping your personal posts private to just close friends is not a bad idea.

If you decide to sign up to try it, my own page is here:
https://www.facebook.com/profile.php?id=100008865947213

You are welcome to 'friend request' me Rosie and I'll accept you! Some people join FB to read their favorite forums and may not post anything to their own pages at all. That is also an option though it may be harder to get friend and join requests approved if people think you are a stalker with nothing at all on your own pages.

I tend to set my painting posts public and most other things these days I set to friends only.

Thanks. I may try that. My husband has a facebook acc't, so maybe I will explore thru his instead of making one of my own. Rosie

That'll work! If you choose to have him friend request me, let me know what his ID is or I may not accept it. I get picky and try to avoid scammers and weirdos by checking their pages for related content.

Ok! Thanks! Rosie

Totally agreed!

Wait,,,,Hopefully no one misunderstood my thread, I didn't get this "oldie". I don't own it. And honestly once I saw the flowers I wasn't totally sold on the idea of having one.

I just hoped to start a thread to stimulate conversation about any oldies we may not really have heard of. Or ones we wonder where did they go?

I think Saintpaulia grotei silvert is a much prettier plant! Thanks for that pix Irina!

I agree with the comments made! Glad we got conversation out of this and I appreciate all of the comments! Rosie

I think you made it clear that you didn't have it - though perhaps you were asking about it and might be interested was the drift, I thought. I don't even remember the names of the African Violets my mother grew when I was a child or if they had names at all. The ones I grew years ago didn't as far as I know. They were just grocery store AV's. It wasn't until around 2015 that I started to get back into growing them and I think I got my first streps in 2016? I'd never had variegated AV's before then either and I was blown away to see them for the first time!

My mom was not a plant person. Dad liked growing things but I was the indoor plant/gesneriad/any plant that caught my fancy person. AND I liked gardening also! Anything that involved dirt!

I remember in the 1960's the dime stores all carried NAMED violets from many of the hybridizers we know today. Tinari, Lyon, Buell, Fredette, Holtcamp etc. and they only cost $1.00 !!!! I was in violet heaven. And variegated ones! Then they invented the trailers! Inky Pink was one of the first "speckled" (fantasy) violets! She was beautiful!!!!

Streps for me didn't happen til the mid 1980's. I worked at an african violet greenhouse and that was the first time I saw them. I really liked them but I loved my violets more. So I never had one. It wasn't until I joined this forum that I rekindled my "like turned love" for them. And you know the rest!!! Ahhh,,,,I digress, but Hyn you led me right down Memory Lane again!

I guess we all have our stories to tell. That would make a great new thread!!! How we discovered violets/gesneriad!!!! What do you think??? Rosie

That was before I was born so I'm glad to hear about it! Oddly enough Streps are a very recent discovery for me and I fell in love at first sight and determined to learn how to grow them. I jumped in with both feet! Keep the stories coming!

Haha! Ok,,,,I am going to start a new thread! Hop on over! Rosie

Another "oldie but goodie!,,,anyone else grow it???-- Happy Cricket (5726) 04/29/1984 (Painesville Town & Country AVS/R. Hollada) Double lavender two-tone frilled. Dark green, ruffled/red back. Large

I remember having this one. Pix doesn't do it justice! Rosie

Happy Cricket is still available on ebay. Can grow XXXLarge. Very good variety. Especially if you like then BIG. Some XXlarges are really worthy... Tiger is my preferred oldie, Fisherman's Paradise is second.

I think Tiger and Fisherman's Paradise are beautiful!