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World's First Blue Hardy Waterlily Finally Comes to Bloom
Posted: Monday, August 11, 2008, 7:01 p.m., EDT
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| Pairat Songpanich hybridized this first blue hardy waterlily called Siam Blue Hardy. (Photo courtesy of Pairat Songpanich) | Pairat Songpanich, who works with the Rubber Research Institute of Thailand, Department of Agriculture, Bangkok, created the world’s first blue hardy waterlily. Water garden enthusiasts and others in the hybridizing community have tried unsuccessfully for years to create the hybrid.
“In a more than 100-year history of pollinating hardy waterlilies, the color blue has never been achieved,” said Songpanich, who began the waterlily hybridizing experiment in 2003. The feat finally was accomplished last year, and to honor the hybrid’s birthplace, it was named Siam Blue Hardy.
Songpanich produced the blue hardy waterlily by crossing the subgenus Nymphaea (hardy) as the pod parent with the subgenus Brachyeras (tropical) as the pollen parent. The hybrid shows hardy and tropical waterlily characteristics with purple/blue blossoms, but the traits are predominantly those of a hardy waterlily, Songpanich said.
Both morphological marker and molecular marker methods were used to confirm that this is a true hybrid, he said. “In the hybridizing community, it is a very exciting achievement in itself,” Songpanich said. “The success has proven the possibility of producing blue hardy from intersubgeneric hybridization. The success could stimulate other hybridizers to explore new possibilities.”
Songpanich now is trying to multiply Siam Blue. <HOME> |