# A tetraploid? Fritz.



## monocotman (Aug 16, 2020)

These arrived on the market last autumn sold by Popow. They were all claimed to be tetraploids.
My plant arrived in spike but that didn’t survive the post. I repotted the plant into my preferred mix of mini rockwool cubes. It had pretty average roots for a FS phrag and looked like it had been repotted very recently into a bark mix.
However it took off in rockwool and over the course of eight months has grown a good new shoot and flower spike.


The flower just opened yesterday so still has some developing to do but looks promising. The two side sheaths also have buds developing, something that is a bit of a surprise. I’ve not seen this before in my other Fritz’s.
Is this a true tetraploid? It’s grown extremely quickly for one, my other confirmed tetraploid, a Jason Fischer, is glacially slow compared to this. If I had to guess, I’d say it was more likely to be a triploid.
The current petal width is 11.5cm, I’ll post again when the flower has finished growing.


David


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## Linus_Cello (Aug 16, 2020)

Maybe triploid? I like the color


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## tomkalina (Aug 16, 2020)

Did you mean the horizontal natural spread was 11.5 cm rather than the petal width?


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## monocotman (Aug 16, 2020)

Sorry Tom, yes you are right.


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## Pinebark (Aug 16, 2020)

Very nice.


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## My Green Pets (Aug 16, 2020)

awesome color, hopefully it will spread out a little more. And nice to have multiple buds coming too.


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## abax (Aug 16, 2020)

Splendid color. The form looks quite nice too for a first bloom. I see
the magnolia is blooming again too. That's a very attractive tree. The
flower color is very different from the Jane Magnolias we grow in the
nursery.


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## ScientistKen (Aug 17, 2020)

Good healthy plant. Really nice color!


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## monocotman (Aug 17, 2020)

thanks everyone.
Angela, I asked about this magnolia on a relevant Facebook group and the view is that it is probably soulangeana ‘lennei’. This hybrid is the most common magnolia grown in the UK. It flowers well in the spring and then later in the year, many of the new growths have a terminal flower so I have another crop!
David


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## NYEric (Aug 17, 2020)

Nice, thanks for sharing. Yay besseae hybrids!


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## terryros (Aug 17, 2020)

I know that Orchids Limited has a kovachii that they suspect might be tetraploid because of certain aspects of its growth and the flower, but they have not confirmed the 4N. Has Popow or anyone else done the analysis to confirm a 4N kovachii that would be needed to make a 4N Fritz Schomburg?


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## monocotman (Aug 17, 2020)

I don’t know. I suspect that these Fritz’s were bought in, not grown by them. we know that there are definite tetraploid besseaes around but kovachii?
I am sure that people have attempted to convert them using colchicine on seed but if they have it’s not been publicised.
Maybe the Fritz seeds were treated with colchicine to convert them but in this case you would not expect 100% conversion.
So maybe someone has a tetraploid kovachii. It would certainly be worth a sum of money as a parent.
As I said, I am not sure this plant is a tetraploid judging by the fast rate of growth.
David


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## MaxC (Aug 17, 2020)

In Cribb's Phragmipedium book it is mentioned that EYOF colchicine treated kovachii flasks that had yet to bloom (book published in 2017). So who knows if there are any 4Ns yet? Based on timing, this would lead me to believe they would have been treated flasks if Popow are selling multiple tetraploid FS.


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## abax (Aug 17, 2020)

David, all the Jane group of Magnolias are hybrids of soulangeana as far as
I know. The Jane group has the wavy leaf edges that are quite
prominent. The ones we sell in the nursery are various shades of
pink and they do bloom on and off most of the summer. I am quite
taken by the dark color of the flowers.


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## NYEric (Aug 18, 2020)

monocotman said:


> So maybe someone has a tetraploid kovachii. It would certainly be worth a sum of money as a parent.




I got a batch of Pk hybrids (I'm sure they came from EYOF) before Pk was named. Because of the source I'm sure there was a program Colchicine treating Pk years ago.


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## monocotman (Aug 18, 2020)

Eric, I am shocked! The EYOF dealing in illegal plants. Perish the thought! I am sure that converting kovachii would be one of the first things that the EYOF tried. 
As Terry said, there was some suggestion that the Fishers clone ‘Tesoro morado’ was a tetraploid but that has never been confirmed.
There is a roundabout way of testing that using their flagship cross with the tetraploid besseae ‘Robs choice‘. 
If the progeny of this cross have some decent fertility in further crossing then that would suggest that these plants were tetraploid and so the kovachii clone should also be tetraploid.
I’ve a couple of these, I may try some crosses this winter.


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## NYEric (Aug 20, 2020)

monocotman said:


> Eric, I am shocked! The EYOF dealing in illegal plants. Perish the thought!


Oh, OK!


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## Hien (Aug 21, 2020)

NYEric said:


> I got a batch of Pk hybrids (I'm sure they came from EYOF) before Pk was named. Because of the source I'm sure there was a program Colchicine treating Pk years ago.


could a tetraploid phrag kovachii occur in nature?


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## MaxC (Aug 21, 2020)

Hien said:


> could a tetraploid phrag kovachii occur in nature?



Though not in nature but in a flask... that's what Orchids Ltd. was thinking about their kovachii 'Tesoro Morado' clone. There's also the toothy clone ThienNgo Le has kovachii 'Sweet Valentine' clone.


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## Hien (Aug 21, 2020)

MaxC said:


> Though not in nature but in a flask... that's what Orchids Ltd. was thinking about their kovachii 'Tesoro Morado' clone. There's also the toothy clone ThienNgo Le has kovachii 'Sweet Valentine' clone.


were those kovachii "Teroso Morado" & "Sweet Valentine" spontaneously came out 4N from flasks even without colchicine treatment?
My other question is that nature must sometimes produce 4N by chance, correct?


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## monocotman (Aug 21, 2020)

As far as we know, yes they were spontaneous. I’m sure that tetraploid plants occur in the wild but if they were like most tetraploid they would be slow growing so at a selective disadvantage.


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## MaxC (Aug 21, 2020)

Yes, untreated flasks. Of course, though statistically minuscule. Perhaps others can chime in but there's been a fischeri, a besseae and also a Barbara Leann that were confirmed as spontaneous tetraploids, though the BL might have had a 4N parent.


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## eds (Aug 21, 2020)

Hien said:


> My other question is that nature must sometimes produce 4N by chance, correct?



Chromosome doubling happens naturally. In the Geranium genus there are species with 2N, 4N, 8N and 16N (and ones with numbers around those multiples. It is possible that they were doublings alongside hybridisation but it is also possible some were natural doublings. Yeo's book 'Hardy Geraniums' contains a lot more info. Whether similar has happened in orchid genera I don't know.


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## terryros (Aug 21, 2020)

I know that ‘Tesoro Morado’ was a natural plant. Although OL can chemically induce tetraploid conversion at the beginning of seed germination, I don’t think they have done this with kovachii. To emphasize, Jerry and Jason Fischer only mentioned possible tetraploid status for Tesoro Morado because of the nature of the flowers and how long they lasted on the plant. It is very possible that this kovachii is still diploid.


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