Very nice hostas! These hostas are more likely reverting than sporting. Devils Advocate reverting to Blue Angel and Brother Stephan to King Tut. A sport would be a completely different leaf than its parent plants I believe. You could probably still separate out the leaves if you wanted . They are often on one eye.

debra

'Brother Stefan' is not a 'King Tut' sport, 'King Tut' is the Pod Parent and a 'Mildred Seaver' seedling is the Pollen Parent. What's happening here is indeed sporting and judging by the light shade of green this would appear to be different from the BS sport called 'Step Brother'.

If you feel inclined to separate the sports I wouldn't delay much longer. There's still plenty of time left in the growing season for new roots to develop on the divisions. I just did that myself yesterday as a matter of fact, took a 'Striptease' sport with about 5 different shoots with different kinds of sporting and separated them as much as possible into individual shoots, making sure they all had a decent amount of roots on them.

Pieter

Pieter, am I correct about the Devils Advocate reverting to BA? I did look up the parents for Brother Stephen and thought it was reverting to Tut due to the color. But I am not a breeder and don’t totally understand how to tell a reversion from a sport.

Can you explain more about this? It seems you recently commented on this in another post somewhere so sorry to make you repeat the information. I am always trying to learn and understand. Thanks in advance. 🙏🏽

debra

Yes, you were correct about 'Devil's Advocate'. That's because it is a sport of 'Blue Angel'.

'Brother Stefan' however started out as a seedling of the two parents outlined in my earlier post. So, it's unique, just like 'Blue Angel' is, and of course there are a number of sports from it such as 'Earth Angel' and 'Guardian Angel' for example. If any of these throw shoots with blue leaves they likely are reverting back to BA as long as there are no other changes such as a smooth leaf or a very wavy leaf, those would constitute sports.

What's happening here with 'Brother Stefan' is a sport, could be called 'Stefan's Cousin'...it looks to be unique..

Have I lost you yet?

Pieter

Chris 209-

When you select a hosta at the Hosta Library, up in the corner above the photos is a clickable link that says MyHostas.net Database. When you do there you will find out more about the hosta and its named sports to see if yours are possibly already named.

-Babka

Thank you Babka, I do use the database all the time.
Pieter, a bit lost….so the Brother Stephen leaves are significantly different from both parents so it’s called a sport? Yes?

debra

Thanks. Very interesting. I'll have to check out the database. Ironically my striptease also has a sport. Just boring solid green.

Any thoughts on the Forbidden Fruit sport?

Chris, the database is very helpful.

debra

Pieter, a bit lost….so the Brother Stephen leaves are significantly different from both parents so it’s called a sport? Yes?

Yes!

Debra, there was nothing prior to 'Brother Stefan' other than the pod and pollen parents, it's a seedling. Go back to 'Blue Angel', it's a seedling with a pod and pollen parent. 'Blue Angel' somewhere along the line ends up sporting/mutating into something new like 'Earth Angel' or Devils' Advocate'. EA and DA are not seedlings, they are individual mutants and those are prone to revert to the original variety, which implies that if they produce a solid coloured shoot said shoot will only be considered a reversion if indeed it is just like 'Blue Angel', but if it differs significantly in any way it would be considered a sport. If a shoot develops on a seedling that is substantially different from the rest of the plant it would be considered a sport.

Let's try the following from the HL:

Sport: an individual arising from the result of mutation, chimeral rearrangement, or mitotic recombination that is genotypically or phenotypically different from the original individual.

So, a sport can and does occur with seedlings but a sport cannot possibly revert to either of the seedlings parents since the original sport is the result of an individual plant mutation, the reversion stops with the original seedling.

Again, from the HL revert: change of a variegated sport back to its original predecessor.

Sports happen both in the garden as well as in tissue culture.

Pieter

Chris, the 'Forbidden Fruit' changes are interesting but I don't think I'd read too much into them. Take a look at some of the pix in the HL and a few pictures do show leaves with a certain amount of blue/green, like the Christina Brinkmann one for example. Before I'd consider it a sport I'd wait to, first off season's end, and see what shows up next year.

Pieter

Thank you Pieter for your efforts to educate me. I will save this post so I can refer back to it if needed in the future!

debra

One more question….. I just received Unforgettable which is a Gold Regal x gold

Tokudama seedling sport. If a leaf decides to do something different, is that then a sport?
debra

YUP, you got it!

Pieter

Debra, there are 2 'Unforgettable' sports: 'Forget about it' and 'Skyrocket'.

Pieter

I’d get rid of those stray eyes. Why mess with Devil’s Advocate? That goes double for Brother Stefan.