African violet leaf prop

[paulkoop]

Soo i look leaf cuttings from a dark purple mini African violet...and im confused in why the babys r flowering a light blueish purple .... Do they not flower to what the mother was or will o get variations? Or will they turn purple second or third flowering?

[paulkoop]

So no one knows? Just split up way too many violets just now. Yah there seems to be 3color forms. Dark purple a light blue /white mixed. And a light blue ...just find it soo weird all the leaf cuttings where from the purple plant ..but the offspring where all over the place..

[malli]

While this is completely different species and example,
Labrador retrievers can have yellow, chocolate, and black puppies all from the same parents, so perhaps this is a variation of what you are seeing with the violet?
I love violets and all the colors so I would be pleasantly surprised in your place

[paulkoop]

Yah i acualy like the light blue flowers with te white. i was just confused to all hell when seeing they wernt purple like the mother plant

[paulkoop]

There is acualy 4or5 difrent shades of green to difrent plants ...which makes me think there might be more colors in there..

[sakerr]

Likely what is happening is that the original plant has unstable genes, or genes which exhibit different traits in different conditions. The tent=perature or acidity of the soil in the original mix may lend more to the deep colour of the original blooms while your conditions could potentially be warmer which would wash out the bloom colour (a known phenomenon for many cultivars of AV's) if the leaves are different colours or display mottles green or red colouring on the backs of leaves that is called birth marking and shows the instability of some varieties genes to shift and mutate. In the AV world we call those s="sports"

Hope that helps

[grackle]

If the original plant was mixed species it would be termed a chimera and the only way to duplicate it is offsets. A way to encourage those is to tilt the whole pot and plant 20-30 degrees and new growing point is more likely to appear. Cut that off with a bit of root and pot it up. Leaf or seed just won't breed true for those guys which is why they are more expensive than the regulars.
www.violetbarn.com/ has a wealth of information.
grack

[sokkos]

Most if not all commercial african violets come from tissue culture so it's uncommon to have chimeric plants.

[grackle]

Yeap, not a grocery store plant. Nurseries like Violet Barn, other hybridizers, conventions and people who have been to them are more likely sources.

[seasmoke]

Often my African violets will produce flowers of a different hue on a subsequent flowering on the same plant. The colours are close but not exact, I think environmental factors cause this. (temp, minerals, light...). For unstable genes, in this case more drastic differences, I would try stem cuttings, it may be more successful in duplicating the parent colour rather than leaf cuttings. I'm no expert but worth a try.