Sinningia 'Ozark Scentimental Journey'

Sometimes a nice hybrid is a joint effort.  There are (at least) two important stages in hybridization: making the cross and selecting the best of the resulting seedlings.  Here these two tasks were done by different people.

Dale Martens put pollen from "an unnamed miniature looking a lot like 'Flair'" onto Sinningia guttata.  It was her first hybrid using S. guttata as parent.  Because she was moving from Texas to Illinois, she didn't have time to raise seedlings, so she sent seed to David Harris, who took blooming seedlings to clubs and had the members pick the one with the strongest scent.  The result was Sinningia 'Ozark Scentimental Journey' -- ozark because David uses that prefix for his hybrids, scentimental because of the aroma, and journey either because it fit with scentimental or because Dale was in the middle of moving.

I got the plant from the sale at the 2007 Gesneriad Society convention in Miami Beach, where Thad Scaggs exhibited a very nice plant of it in the show.

That Scent

I must admit that neither I nor anybody whose nose I've forced into the flower can detect any noticeable fragrance.  I could not smell anything from Thad's show plant either.  It is, however, true that the scent of Sinningia guttata is quite subtle, and depends strongly on time of day.  It is quite possible I'm just trying at the wrong times.

[Update in 2011: Sure enough, there is an aroma.  Recommendation: sniff soon after the flower opens.  Perhaps the aroma dissipates, because after a day I could not smell it any more.  Very pleasant!]

No matter.  It's hard to beat the flowers.

They are large in comparison with plant size and very dramatic.

The calyxes are large and leafy, like those of the S. guttata seed parent.  The leaves, on the other hand, are closer in size and texture to miniatures like S. 'Flair'.