Marx의 하월시아 Hybrid에 대한 생각읽기..

하월시아 하이브리드에 대한 Marx의 생각을 읽어볼 수 있는 글로 앞서 글을 올렸던 Pricklypete 홈페이지의

내용과도 일맥 상통하는 글 같다. 일단 발췌해서 올리고 시간이 될때 번역해서 다시 정리를 해봐야겠다.

(http://www.gerhardmarx.com/ 참조)

Haworthia Hybrids.

(The article below was published under the title 'Bastard beauties' in Alsterworthia 9 (3) November 2009.)

Gerhard Marx

Many Haworthia enthusiasts are somewhat surprised when they visit these plants in the field for the first time. Those who have visited Haworthias in habitat will know that during dry periods the plants can be shriveled beyond recognition and even when turgid after rains the plants are still often covered with dirt and have some scars from insect damage or trampling by animals. But even the occasional plant that is clean and un-scarred in the wild is often not nearly as attractive as the plants we have in cultivation. This is firstly because the original stock material from the wild were in most cases already selected plants with striking features and secondly it is inevitable that the most attractive offspring of these plants would be the ones that became most propagated and treasured in cultivation. Therefore we should never take the material we have in cultivation for granted as they are mostly far more attractive than the average plant encountered in the wild.

In fact, by selecting the most attractive seedlings and crossing them with each other, one can breed cultivars that are so far removed from the general plant in the wild that it can be hard to believe that they are the same species ! The photos below show the difference in selected Haworthia retusa seedlings compared to plants growing in the wild.

Haworthia retusa in habitat south-west of Riversdale.

Haworthia retusa. The result of selection and re-selection of seedlings with attractive markings.

It is surprising to what extent certain characters can be bred by cross-pollinating selected plants. If one would select, for example, two plants of H. pygmaea var. argenteo-maculosa that both have rather dense white flecks and cross-pollinate them, the majority of the seedlings will have denser flecks than the average plant of that species. Often there will also be a few that will be even denser flecked than the two parent plants and should one then cross them again with each other when flowering, you may get even more extreme dense flecking, until someday you will get a plant with almost solid white flecked windows and which may actually qualify to get a cultivar name.

The same principle applies when one wants to create attractive hybrids between different species. If one should cross-pollinate just an average looking H. splendens with a plain looking H. badia, then the result may not be spectacular. But if you choose the most attractively flecked and glossy H. splendens with a H. badia with strongly recurved glossy leaves, then most of the resulting seedlings will also have the dense flecking of splendens combined with the recurved leaf-shape of badia.