Weingartia (Sulcorebutia) breviflora L314 flower colour

[Paul D]

I know it is a few years ago since the last post when I mentioned this viewtopic.php?p=238545&hilit=l314#p238545 but I have finally got around to growing from seeds of L314. Seeds were collected by isolating two plants, both with yellow flowers. The resulting seeds were sown and here are a few of the results, flowering for the first time this year. The yellow flowered offspring opened flowers first. This represents the general proportions- more than half red, then the rest made up of mostly reddish-orange or orange with a few yellow.
I have yet to find a pink one, but I know they do exist (hint)

[DaveW]

Hi Paul,

Sounds like a case of dominant and recessive genes regarding flower colour.

I don't know the flower colour variation in the S. breviflora population, but as a matter of interest this was originally an offset years ago from a genuine Cardenas specimen and its very shy offsetting. It was given to me by Roger Ferryman who I believe bought up the old Roanoak collection. As I recall Roanoak received it as part payment from Cardenas for obtaining Backebergs Die Cactaceae for him plus a specimen of his S. arenacea as well.

Sulcorebutia breviflora material ex Cardenas. You can see rather short tubed flower as the name suggests.

[Paul D]

I have lots of different breviflora collection numbers here, and almost exclusively yellow, one or two verging on orange or brownish. L314 is well known for coming in a variety of colour morphs and I was keen to see if this represented different populations. I suspect the pink version may be from a distinct population, but clearly the red / orange / yellow versions are all from the same. Has anyone here seen these in the wild? L314 is the type plant for the species and was collected along the Rio Caine, Bilbao, Potosi in Bolivia.

[ralphrmartin]

Here are a white one and a pink one. The pink one has yet to offset (your hint has been noted ), but the white one has a small pup. Actually, the white one is a bit pink, and the pink one is a bit white...

[SimonT]

So how do you decide if they are from a single population? Is it just because you get a set of colour variants from
one cross?

[DaveW]

The problem is always the source and whether you have collected plants or seed material direct from habitat. Or are the seed and plants under those numbers second or third generation obtained from nurserymen? If so you can never be sure enough precautions have been taken to prevent open pollination from other plants in their collection. Also untypical sports occur both in nature and cultivation therefore they may produce unusual colours and in cultivation may be line bred to produce cultivars not found in the wild.

I did read an article by a botanist once casting doubts on the value of much ex-situ cultivation as a possible method of re-stocking habitat unless very strict precautions were taken in producing the plants as he thought most cacti in cultivation were now complex hybrids that should never be used to restock and pollute the gene pool of those remaining in habitat.

David Hunt once told me that Schlumbergers were being collected by the locals for decoration in one habitat area so some well meaning conservationists decided to restock habitat. However instead of obtaining plants direct from that habitat and growing more from cuttings or carefully pollinated seed they decided just to go to the local market and obtain Schlumbergeras of unknown lineage and reintroduced those back into habitat, therefore polluting the gene pool.

[MatDz]

I did read an article by a botanist once casting doubts on the value of much ex-situ cultivation as a possible method of re-stocking habitat unless very strict precautions were taken in producing the plants as he thought most cacti in cultivation were now complex hybrids that should never be used to restock and pollute the gene pool of those remaining in habitat.

David Hunt once told me that Schlumbergers were being collected by the locals for decoration in one habitat area so some well meaning conservationists decided to restock habitat. However instead of obtaining plants direct from that habitat and growing more from cuttings or carefully pollinated seed they decided just to go to the local market and obtain Schlumbergeras of unknown lineage and reintroduced those back into habitat, therefore polluting the gene pool.

If those aforementioned "polluted" gene pools result in plants surviving, or God(s, to be inclusive) forbid, thriving and hybridising further in habitat, who are we to say that they are not worthy to be there? Maybe it's not that bad to avoid inbreeding and high specialisation of populations? The whole taxonomy is just a human-made tool to help our limited imagination.

[DaveW]

As I understand it the correct way to restock habitat is as with the Kew Millennium Seed Bank. Collected seed is stored and never germinated until needed to refresh their original habitat. After germination the plants are returned to the habitat the seed was originally collected from. Not further propagated in in order to avoid hybridised seed from succeeding generations or even clones being produced in cultivation.

In short the only difference is the collected seed is germinated in cultivation with the plants directly returned to habitat before flowering or fruiting to breed normally again without the risks of further ex-situ cultivation polluting their gene pool.

One other thing often overlooked is that extinction is a normal part of evolution, even humans will eventually go extinct. If some species do not go extinct others cannot evolve to fill their former niche. After all if some life forms had not gone extinct in the past we humans would not be here now. The difficulty of course these days is untangling natural extinction from man made extinction speeding up the process, just as with mans effect on climate change versus the earths normal warming and cooling periods.

The world was never the same in the past as it is now and will never be the same in future. The problem is humans always consider what they experience in their lifetimes as the normal state of the planet. As the saying goes "Most conservationists want to save the Elephant from extinction but few want to save the Flea" though both are a result of normal evolution in the past.

[Paul D]

So how do you decide if they are from a single population? Is it just because you get a set of colour variants from
one cross?

My post in reply yesterday has mysteriously vanished Possibly I forgot to "submit".

No, I just wanted to show (myself) that yellow flowered plants aren't only capable of producing yellow flowered offspring. There is some complicated genetics going on with flower colour and it is not a case of yellow producing yellow, red producing red, which would suggest genetically distinct populations. I don't know about the pink flowered form. It's not a scientific study just a bit of fun. I'll try crossing a red with a red and see what happens

[edds]

There is no correct way to restock. Stored seed, if it has been stored too long, could miss important adaptations that have happened in the population and, due to the founder effect, will skew the genetic distribution of alleles regardless of provenance. The issue of genetic contamination and/or incorrect classification might also be harder to spot in young, unflowered plants that could mean an issue is only discovered once those plants have been returned to habitat.

Either way is a crap shoot but the seed bank's aims might be the best chance to return uncontaminated material once habitats have been restored.