A "Crown" fit for a King.

How about these two lovely violets??? The bright coral pink of Kate's Rendezvous is highlighted by the pink variegation in the center of the plant. The purple fantasy, called Festival on Ice, also shows the dark outer leaves and the nicely contrasting inner leaves. This type of plant patterning, generously allowed to be photographed from Sharon's collection, is called "crown variegation".

According to the fine folks at Optimara, the crown variegation is defined as:
Crown Variegation: Characteristic of African Violets which develop variegated leaves on the crown. While all variegated cultivars will normally have crown variegation, the term most often applies to those African Violets which have crown variegation only, while the rest of the leaves remain completely green.

Variegated plants usually show the coloration better when grown in a cooler than average environment. Do you find this to be true? What about variegation do you like? Leave a comment.

Variegation!

Variegation is the appearance of differently colored zones and areas on leaves or stems of plants. But, did you know that this is caused by many different things? Not only is it caused by lack of pigment in certain parts of a leaf, it may appear because of reflections of light, the close proximity of cells with different genetic makeup in the same leaf or flower, the masking of lighter pigments because of the presence of darker pigments and because of viral infections! Read more about the various types of variegation here!

The stunning variegated plants are grown by Sharon! Thanks for the examples!

Variegated African Violets

Bob Green calls variegated African violets "peacocks of the violet world" because of their "plumage" or leaves they possess, making them stand out from others with green foliage.

Variegated foliage was discovered by Mrs. Tommie Louise Oden when she ordered leaves of White Pride from Clyde Rollof. It was a white double plant, but when she planted the leaves, she discovered different colored leaves. She grew them through nine generations, and they came "true". Up until that time variegated plants were unstable.

TYPES OF VARIEGATION:

Tommie Lou: A simple feathered edge on individual leaves to a much heavier crown variegation fading down gradually to the feathered edge on the outer leaves. The original Tommy Lou only vaguely resembles most of the modern hybrids with outside-perimeter variegation.

Crown: The center leaves are often totally variegated, then as the leaves mature and grow out and away from the crown, they gradually gain green coloration in a sprinkling effect. The heart of the leaf remains initially variegated, and the green gradually radiates into this variegation until, as a large mature leaf, only a stippling edge of variegation remains, along, with a small heart sometimes.

Mosaic: The variegation appears as uniform stippling or marbling covering the entire leaf surface, and the leaf is never without variegation even though it may be faint at times. There are very few of this type since it were introduced many years ago. They are very stable and not affected by temperature change or high nitrogen fertilizer. This "mosaic pattern covers the whole leaf and is a serious defection or mutation and very few of them reach maturity. These plantlets are puny or hard to grow. There are very few good show plants, both Emperor and Lillian Jarrett have proved to be real winners.

Other Variegation: The AVSA registration form for new hybrids lists the following items to check under leaf description: "If variegated-type of variegation ___Crown___Mosaic___Other. The "other" apparently includes all forms of the Tommy Lou. There is also a line to denote the color of the variegation. I think many hybridizers now would tend just to call a plant variegated unless it was a crown or mosaic.

Tommie Loue type variegation is more stable under a wider range of conditions than crown variegation. Those varieties with crown variegation can loose almost all variegation in the summer heat. However, the new leaves will start variegating again when cool weather returns. Both crown variegtes and the Tommie Loue types will do better if you place them closer to the floor (for example, the lowest shelves of your light stands) where the temperture is cooler, since heat naturally rises. The mosaic variegates are not affected by temperture and heat, and their variegation will remain constant.

If a plant shows no sign of variegation in African violet shows, the judges must reduce the plant to a red ribbon, and then continue judging it using the AVSA scale of points.

Thanks to Sharon Johnson for the article and pictures!!!

Note: Excerpts taken from: Variegted African violets by Denis Croteau, AVM, July-Aug 1988, Peacocks of the Violet World by Bob Green, AVM, Nov. 1985 , Pauline Barthlomew's Growing to Show and Picture of Bunny Wabbit from www.freewebs.com

Pretty patterns

Here's a shot of some very handsome leaves! This photo, shared by S. J., comes from the national show in Tucson in 2004.

Variegation in African Violet plants comes from some interesting sources. Traditional breeding using the natural variation that exists among members of a wild population will produce offspring that show differences. Depending on the type of organism involved, these "differences" can be very slight or quite noticeable. All natural populations that use cell division to reproduce will occasionally have mutations occur.

According to Gerald Klingaman, it is estimated that one in approximately a million cell divisions will produce a mutation. This means that something has gone wrong with the division process and an identical copy of the parent 's genes has not been produced. Most of these mutations have no effect, some are detrimental, but once in a great while you'll get one that's beneficial. One person's beneficial might not be another person's idea of a good mutation but in the case of the African Violet these mutations will be valued if they produce changes in patterns and colors.

Besides traditional breeding, violets can be induced to "change" when their genetic numbers are doubled, tripled or quadrupled. This condition is called polyploidy. Variations can also be produced with interspecific breeding, or crossing species that are within the same genus. And, you can get a whole exciting range of possibilities with "mutation breeding".

Mutation breeding involves deliberately trying to change the genetic structure of an organism by exposing it to things like chemicals or radiation. In the 1920's x-rays were used to change plant material and people liked the interesting effects that were turning up. Then chemicals were shown to cause genetic changes and even today people are very cautious about what they're exposed to because chemicals can indeed cause genetic changes like cancer or birth defects. Then in 1945 nuclear radiation was found to make all sorts of genetic changes! Gamma rays were used - people could even send in their seedlings or seeds to the Oak Ridge Nuclear Reactor in Tennessee to have their plant material zapped. The changes that were produced were interesting but tended to be unstable.

All of these methods of changing the look of a plant have given the African Violet we see today tremendous possibilities for interesting flowers and foliage. What sorts of violets are you most fond of? Variegates, doubles, crinkled leaves? Let us know what you think would make a good looking plant if you could pick all the traits!