Sinningia 'Altamont Cascade'
(Sinningia eumorpha 'Saltão' x sp. "Ibitioca")
At the 2006 Gesneriad Society convention,
Bill Price gave me a tuber of his cross
S. eumorpha 'Saltão' x sp. "Ibitioca".
It first bloomed for me in May 2007, at the same time as S. sp. "Ibitioca".
What a wonderful plant!
The flowers look a lot like those of S. sp. "Ibitioca": purple,
campanulate (bell-shaped), with a yellow guide in the throat.
The habit is derived from S. eumorpha:
an erect stem with flowerstalks in the leaf axils.
This makes for a tidier plant than the Ibitioca parent, which often sprawls.
The hybrid also has (for me, in 2007) four flowers per axil, up from
eumorpha's one (or occasionally two).
The only downside is that this crowds the flowers a bit, but we'll live with that, won't we?
I have suggested the name Cascade to Bill for this hybrid, since
- 'Saltão' means waterfall (i.e., cascade) in Portuguese
- Bill lives in the Pacific Northwest, sometimes called Cascadia in defiance of
national borders
In November 2009, Bill informed me that he was registering the plant under
the name 'Altamont Cascade', Altamont being the neighborhood in which he lives.
In August 2009, I exhibited one plant in the San Mateo (California) County Fair
and got a blue ribbon.
Then at the San Francisco Gesneriad Society's plant sale in September,
the plant sold for $20.
Shoots of this hybrid root readily and produce large, heavy-blooming plants
in just a couple of years.
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The picture on the left shows the front view of two flowers.
The hybrid flower is on top, with the Sinningia sp. "Ibitioca" flower on the bottom.
The hybrid flower has a wide yellow strip in the corolla throat, inherited from
S. eumorpha.
The purple of the "Ibitioca" flower is just a bit denser.
The picture on the right shows the flowers from the side, again with the hybrid on top.
The flowers are essentially the same size, with the hybrid having the "slipper" shape from
S. eumorpha.
Both parents have big leaves, and the cross has really big leaves.
One leaf blade (not counting the petiole) is 24 cm [9.5 inches] long.
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Feature table for Sinningia eumorpha 'Saltão' x sp. "Ibitioca"
Plant Description
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| Growth |
Indeterminate |
| Habit |
Erect stem with opposite leaves |
| Leaves |
Medium to dark green with reddish leaf backs, depending on light |
| Dormancy |
Normal "bagel" tuber. Stems fully deciduous |
Flowering
|
| Inflorescence |
Axillary cymes, with one to many flowers. |
| Season |
Summer through autumn |
| Flower |
Campanulate, purple, with yellow stripe on floor of corolla tube |
Horticultural aspects
|
| Hardiness |
Has survived 32 F [0 C] in my back yard. |
| Propagation |
This plant appears to be sterile, as expected.
I rarely see any pollen on the anthers.
However, stem cuttings root readily. |
| Recommended? |
Definitely, if you can get your hands on one. |
Hybridization
|
| Hybridizer |
Bill Price |
| Fertility |
Almost certainly sterile; my plant has no pollen. |