April Meeting Minutes

The April meeting had many wonderful slides of Sinningia. Some of the various Sinningia named were discussed and their differing horticultural needs pointed out.

Examples of the Sinningia we saw were, S. leopolidd, S.canescens, S. leutoricha, S. iarae, S. polyantha - (which humming birds like), S.calcaria, S. magnifica - (which looks like a cardinalis but is bigger), S. glazioviana - (which Clay uses in some crosses), S. hatschbachii, S. reitzii - (which used to be called Rechsteinaria), S. 
douglasii, S. insularis, S. rupicola, S. macropoda and S. laterita. Other crosses were discussed like S. "Bewitched" x S. calcaria which Mike brought to display.













The next photo is of S. iarae x a peloric red Sinningia. The crossis on the right side.

















The show and tell portion of the meeting had lots of wonderful Kohleria that were in bloom. A particularly large blooming variety is "Red Rider" that has very large blooms.

Here are two other photos.....

The business meeting started at 8:13 pm. There was no treasury report. Discussion about the fact that there were too many people still able to sign the checkbook would be looked into. There was discussion about the nomination of officers and who would be willing to fill various positions. The president can only serve one repeat term and we'll discuss this more at the May meeting. The secretary stays the same and so does treasurer for the coming year.

We made a motion to send $60.00 to Mauro and it was passed. We looked at the thank you notes from the show. The club events, such as the Eloise Butler Wildflower Garden trip and Art in Bloom, times and locations were given.

No old business was brought up. We talked about the Friends sale at the State Fair grounds and noted times and dates of the sale. Clay would be working in the rare plant section on Friday. Sue was going to bring treats for the May meeting.

While we had the great pleasure of welcoming a new member, Dennis, from "down south" we also were very sad to hear that long time member Janet would no longer be coming regularly to meetings. She will have to come visit though!

The meeting was done at 8:35 pm.

Isn't This Awesome?

How about some seeds? These are African violet seeds from a variety named 'Emerald City'. 'Emerald City' is a chimera (a green and white pinwheel patterned flower) and it should be interesting to see what possible characteristics the offspring from the seeds will show.

 The seed pod from off of the parent plant. (Clicking on the photos will enlarge some of them for a better look.)

 What it looks like when you break the pod open. Note how small the seeds look.

 This is a pencil point of an ordinary pencil. The magnification is so great that you can see the wood-fiber of the pencil and still the seed looks small.

 This is the pod opened and it shows you how the seed is laying inside the pod. Think pea pod and how the peas are arranged when you open a pea pod.

The last photo is the largest I can get it magnified, but you can see that the individual seeds have a bumpy surface. I wonder if all violet seeds are bumpy?

As you know, a chimera violet won't produce a "chimera" from a vegetative leaf cutting, but will produce the "chimera" pattern from a blossom stem cutting or a sucker taken from the parent plant. I'm not sure if seed from a chimera will produce a chimera baby. I also don't know if this seed is viable. It was left on the plant till the pods were dry and ripe. Let's see what happens. I would love comments from the club or others.... click on the link and make a comment please.