Sunday, September 14, 2008

ACHOO?

Tricyrtis Sinonome is really an impressive tricyrtis; the plants are a full three foot tall, with large, thick, deep green leaves. The flowers are dark beauties; light lilac with numerous inky purple blotches and spots. The plant is thought to be a hybrid between tricyrtis formosana and hirta, and it certainly has the hallmarks of that cross; rather upright plants with a lot of foliage and the flowers are held in upright sprays and are deeply spotted. However, the plant undoubtedly is infected with a virus (as are a number of other toad lily crosses like Dark Wonder and Raspberry Mousse); the virus causes the flowers to coalesce their spots into blotches of color.
There is no consensus on what, if any, actual harm the virus causes to the plants; will these hybrids over a number of years begin to decline in health, or is the virus just a case of the sniffles? Tricyrtis Sinonome presently is as healthy and vigorous looking as one could hope to see in a tricyrtis... time will tell.
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// posted by IBOY @ 8:28 AM
Comments:
Don, is it very close in proximity to other tricyrtis? That was the gist of what I understood from Chris Wilson of Hallson Garden. That's why I got rid of my infected plants... they were within 10 feet of the other new ones I'd gotten this Spring, and I didn't want the virus to spread.
# posted by Blogger Shady Gardener : September 14, 2008
 
Shady... this one isn't; it's probably thirty foot away from any other tricyrtis. I wonder about plant-sucking insects though. What's to stop one from flying thirty or forty feet?
Don
# posted by Blogger IBOY : September 14, 2008
 
I'm not enough of a purist to destroy an infected plant like that as long as the plant appears to be healthy. If I hadn't read your post, I wouldn't even have suspected it had a virus.
But you gotta do what you gotta do! Pretty, all the same. My 'Sinonome' isn't blooming yet.
# posted by Blogger Kylee Baumle : September 14, 2008
 
Kylee... I haven't destroyed any of my infected toadies yet, either... but I'm thinking about it. If I see the virus show up in any previously non-infected plant, they'll go!
Don
# posted by Blogger IBOY : September 15, 2008
 
Hello from Dublin, Ireland.

I've just found your blog and am delighted with your photos.
# posted by Blogger Tales from the Birch Wood. : September 16, 2008
 
Birch Wood... glad you stopped by. Living in lovely Ireland, I'd say you were "slumming" by stopping by my Iowa blog :o)

don
# posted by Blogger IBOY : September 16, 2008
 
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