Re: CULT:what's a SPORT?

Forgive me if this has already been answered, but I did not see this
question addressed directly.

A sport is basically any mutant that appears in a plant (not meaning
offspring that look different from the parent, but a plant part that is
different from the rest of the plant).  Often these sports can be
reproduced by dividing the plant, and can give rise to a new cultivar.
Genetically it is still the same clone as it's parent, but it is not
identical.

The most common sports in cultivated plants are variations in coloring,
such as variegated foliage appearing on a normally green plant (or visa
versa) or a change in variegation pattern, or such as different flower
colors or patterns.  Sometimes the sports are morphological in nature,
meaning changes in the structure, such as number of flower parts, crested
parts, etc.

Some sports are deformities, or ugly; others can be spectacularly
wonderful.  Also, it is not unusual for a sport to revert back to "normal"
and visa versa.

One example that I can't resist telling (though I can think of several
other examples off-hand) is a potted chrysanthemum that used to sit on the
windowsill in the Secretary's office in the High School I attended.  This
was an amazing plant even without having sported, since it survived there
in that window for several years, and flowered every autumn.  It was a
typical nice gold-yellow colored double-flowered plant, but one year a
branch came up and produced rich purple flowers.  It was considered sort of
a minor "miracle", because the school colors were purple and gold.  Well,
some of us figured it had been faked, so we took it upon ourselves to
investigate further;  the stem was indeed connected to the main plant, so
the purple really was a sport from the yellow.  When I graduated the plant
was still there, but that was a long time ago, and the building hasn't even
there for nearly 30 years; so, I suppose the plant is either in somebody's
garden or long past buried at the dump.


Dave

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