preserving Lavandula cultivars

This may be a little long for a simple newsgroup post. It was cut from a
somewhat heated discussion with Ian Caldicott <ian@lavenderfarms.com>.

The discussion was continued off the list but may be revided here and to
growers and collectors of Lavender cultivars if present here it may be of
special interest.

My statement: reproduction of cultivars must always be vegetatively
(cuttings) except for the occasional exception that proves the rule.

1. You can always reproduce non hybridised wild plants from seed. If a
plant is only named L. angustifolia it should be clear that this is a plant
as it could occur in the wild. It may show small differences from
population  to population and even within a certain population as humans
do. Catherine Couttolenc who holds a collection of Lavandula in Sault in
France, in the capital of lavenderproduction told me there are still
seedraised fileds out there in the mountains. These populations show a
certain percentage white, pink and even bicoloured flowering plants. She
has named a few very nice cultivars from that.

If there are so many white angustifolia types out there, why is the only
one in the trade usually labelled as L. angustifolia 'Alba' if in fact it
is a lavandin (L. x intermedia). There are according to my own observations
(partly backed by Brittisch collectionholder as well) two clones of this
white L. x intermedia that appear under many different cultivar names
('Snow Cap', 'Large White', 'Dutch White'', 'Hidcote White', 'Edelweiss'
and 'Alba'anything to add....?)

Only recently I was given a true L. angustifolia 'Alba' that was selected
from seedlings of the very distinct and rather weak in our climate L.
angustifolia 'Nana Alba'.  L. angustifolia 'Alba' was to date a missing
link in the trade that to my knowledge was lost since the 18th century when
it reportedly existed in Switserland.

2. a hybrid like L. x intermedia does occur in the wild where the
populations of the parents (L. latifolia and L. angustifolia) meet at 600 m
altitude in Provence alpes. Due to chromosome numbers it is however very
unlikely these hybrids wil produce viable seed. In rare occasions the
chromosome number may double during reproductive cell division. This may
have lead to some reported cases of fertile L. x intermedia, but this has
to my knowledge not yet been examined by scientists. Only  option for
multiplication is vegetative.

'Lavender Lady' is a seed strain, a variety that has been designed for
generic reproduction. This can be reached by selecting for specific
characteristics, generation after generation eliminating unwanted
characteristics and finally producing a very stable uniform strain.

3. 'Lavender Lady' is a seed strain, a variety that has been designed for
generic reproduction. This can be reached by selecting for specific
characteristics, generation after generation eliminating unwanted
characteristics and finally producing a very stable uniform strain.

'Munstead' and 'Hidcote Blue' can be obtained as seed, the offspring
however is not the real thing and should be labelled so that it is clear
this is not the real thing. We label the seedraised plants as 'Munstead'
(S) and 'Hidcote Blue' (S) or 'Munstead' Strain and 'Hidcote Blue' Strain.
We sell these plants at a lower price for hedging. We tell our custumors
they are excellent plants but may show some variation.

In the Netherlands it is common to specify if a plant is seed or
vegatatively propagated a clonal L. angustifolia would  be called L.
angustifolia 'Senior' if a grower wants to make clear the plants were not
seed raised. This also suggests some selection may have been applied in the
population but it certainly means the plants are identical for a certain
grower.

The practice that nurserymen grow named cultivars from seed and
misinterpretation or loss of labels has caused an enormous chaos in the
trade. I was very disapointed when at the lavender trials at Wisley almost
half of the plants had a sign saying: name being checked. Lavender growers
from all over the world  were there but no one could raise the doubt to a
more satisfactory level just by observing the flowering plants. That may
heve been why Tony Hall, responsable for the rockgarden and woodlandplants
at Kew reffered to the meeting as: the lavenderfight.

4. To make things even worse also vegetative reproduction (by cuttings) has
proven to also give variable offspring. Not just by mutation, cuttings
taken from different parts of a plants show small differences in habit.
This has been observed for Rosmarinus and is general nurserymen's knowledge
here for Taxus. When I first heard about this I was stunned. Why then the
effort to preserve cultivars from extinction? This however causes very
small differences compared to generative variation. Unfortunately this is
only seldom mentioned and may not have been thoroughly studied yet.

Holding a collection of lavender is a matter of patient observation. When I
grew a Lavender from seed several years ago labelled as Lavandula maroccana
I soon neglected the plants and they may have even got lost in a batch of
L. multifida because of my assumption that since I had not found it in
litarature it would probably be a synonym for L. multifida that is very
simmilar. Later I learned from Tim Upson the difference is hardly noticable
but does exist. A lesson learned to the collector!  To this day I am not
completely certain if my multifida may have been hybridised with Lavandula
maroccana. What the heck, nature is a cruel place taking every opportunity
to make us humans with our eager to categorise ridiculus.

Today I am very serious about labels and I always try to keep specimen away
from the public. Sometimes they break trough into the nursery and when I
see them pull labels out of my specimen pots I have to count to ten.
Started putting a second label invisible in the soil. I realise it may
sound silly I have a collection of plants and I can not recognize them. But
many lavenders look a lot alike unless in flower. And a collection of 120
lavenders does contain  simmilar plants under different names. If I loose
my reference plants how can I verify?

Roger Bastin,


               Kruidenkwekerij, V.O.F. Roger & Linda Bastin

             Kruiden, geurplanten en bijzondere tuinplanten
       	        Nederlandse planten collecties:
           Lavandula, Rosmarinus, Salvia, Santolina, Thymus

          Herbs, fragrant plants and uncommon plants nursery
	          Dutch National collections of:
           Lavandula, Rosmarinus, Salvia, Santolina, Thymus

                            http://www.cuci.nl/~bastinkk/

            Trichterweg 148a, 6446 AT Brunssum, Nederland,
              Tel.: **31-45-5231475, Email; bastinkk@cuci.nl
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