Re: HYB: tttt - more questions

I'm glad I'm not the only one who draws blanks!  I complain about having a
(mental) "sticky file drawer."  Oddly, it applies only to nouns, and is not
Alzheimer's, as I've had this condition since I was a teenager, several
decades ago.

Linda, the species of which you are thinking is with no doubt, *I. aphylla*.

To get red from anthocyanidins, a couple things have to happen.  We have to
get out of the delphinidin Violanin box we are in.  The utter best these
pigments we now have are those at their reddest in diploids, PINK RUFFLES
being one premium example.  It is a lovely orchid or lavender pink at best.

There are other anthocyanidins that can and do produce true reds--principally
the Pelargonidins.

There is an unpublished article in circulation about some work with JI's and
their pigments in Japan that has identified an "epistatic" gene--one that is
in a different locus, but acts upon another factor--that affects how the
hydroxyl ions get substituted for hydrogens on the basic flavylium structure
that is ancestral to all anthocyanins--if I read the $10 words rightly.  The
vocabulary stretches my comprehension to say the least.

Dominant non-blue (=Dominant White) symbolized by "I" is an epistatic factor,
for example among those with which we are already familiar..

Pelargonidins are two hydroxyls away from Delphinidins, so the chances of
finding--or manufacturing--a gene that will un-hook or prevent the hooking on
of the hydroxyls at the 3' and 5' positions on the flavylium B ring (see TWOI,
p. 362) is a bit out of our present reach, one might think.

Judging by what Rick Ernst and the Cooley family are attempting with Lycopene,
perhaps such a possibility with anthocyanins is not so far from a present
reality.  We just need the right resources, plus several years working time,
and bingo! a red iris the color of Geraniums, or Impatiens, to say nothing of
Gladiolus, Roses, or Peonies.

Neil Mogensen  z 7 western NC mountains

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