MickeyAZ's garden catalogue question and Joyce's response led me through Logee's Brugmansia selection. I love my pink Brugmansias, but I need some yellow/and or orange ones. After seeing Inca Sun last year, I decided I had to have it, but it has been sold out for months. Then I remembered seeing it for sale in the Select Seeds catalog. I went to that site as well. I have also been wanting a lemon yellow and that led me to Jamaica Yellow. Both sites have it for sale. I saw two very different plants sold under the same name. So I went to PlantFiles to see those photos. What I found has me convinced that the PlantFiles has to be monitored more closely. And that leads me to my question: Which is the true Jamaica Yellow?
In Snowhermit's and DonnB's photos, the leaves are entire, the corolla neck is very long with very short almost non-existent tendrils. Judycooksey's photos show leaves with serrated edges, the corolla neck is not visible and the blooms have good sized tendrils.
http://davesgarden.com/guides/pf/showimage/130564/
Logee's sells Jamaica Yellow plants that look like Snowhermit's and DonnaB photos. Select Seeds sells ones that look like Judycooksey's photos.
http://www.logees.com/prodinfo.asp?number=R1121-4
http://www.selectseeds.com/cgi-bin/htmlos.cgi/04940.2.2071684327328933020
Which Brug is it? This one or that one...
You may never get a correct answer to this question, but to me Select Seeds plant looks much more like Whiskers the Jamaica Yellow. Logees look like the plant I had called Jamaica Sun.
Sellers tend to find a picture that looks like one they have and just use that name.
I have a friend who has a reputable garden center. He purchased many brug cuttings from a seller. They came in huge bundles with names. Each of these bundles produced no less them 2 different looking brugs. He had no choice but to sell everything as pink, yellow, white etc.
You might try Country Gardens or Seed Sprout for your plants. You will get what you want and wonderful healthy plants. Logees is also very good, but they are in the North and likley not shipping brugs this time of year.
It's a shame that this is happening.. it's happening all over with brugs. I don't believe it's any one person's fault. I believe it's a product of IDing a no name plant and selling/trading/buying it as a named variety. It very well could be that all the plants pictured in PlantFiles were all purchased as Jamaican Yellow.
Personally, I don't think Jamaican yellow is that nice of a lemon yellow and is not near as pretty as Whiskers anyway. :) Not many brugs can beat Whiskers for scent either!
It is a good thing you do your homework before you purchase Betty. Good luck to you!
I agree with Brenda about Seedsprout and Countrygdn being a safe place to shop.
I have bought from both Seedsprout and Countrygdn and have been very happy with my purchases.
I need a reality check every once in a while. I tend to revert back to my first year as a Brug lover when my montra was "Ooooh, I don't have that one. Gotta have it." One benefit of losing Brugs this past summer was the weeding out of all the ones that later turned out to not be what they were sold as or I didn't like, but was too soft to throw in the recycle pile. Of course, I also lost ones I dearly loved. Those I plan to repurchase or beg for cuttings later.
There is still the question of what is posted on PlantFiles. Is there a Brugmansia database somewhere to check against so that accidental posting of misidentified photos and descriptions are weeded out? Or perhaps a Caution could be added about there being a question on what the true variety looks like. :-)
Brenda and Joyce, thank you for your input.
Veronica
This message was edited Jan 13, 2008 3:16 PM
Just post your question, I am sure you will get plenty of advice or go to plant files.
I sure do remember the days when I wanted one of everything too, but now have learned to curb my brug appetite and try to stay have some self control. (This from the woman with 164 brugs stashed all through the house.)
Brenda,you need one more.Might as well make it an even 165.
Brenda, I'm with you.... they're all over the place here.
Hi Betty. :^)
Jamaica Yellow is a very old cultivar (some say a natural hybrid) found growing wild on the island of Jamaica. It is very heavily suaveolens or insignis influenced, so it is easily told apart from aurea-influenced multi-hybrids, like is shown at Select Seeds (who have it wrong).
So about half the pics for this one in the Plant Files are for-sure wrong: all those with long tendrils and where the green calyx hides the very narrow top part of the corolla (flower) tube.
To answer your question, yes there is one official list. For all different cultivated plant genera, the International Society for Horticultural Science appoints one International Cultivar Registration Authority (ICRA), who is charged with keeping that list. Here is a link to the current list: http://www.abads.org/abads/Registry/namelist/ There are about 1400 cultivars now.
I'm the new ICRA Registrar, so I've been working day & night trying to get it cleaned up & get more of the cultivars linked to pictures. Hope to have it updated soon.
Here is a direct link to what Jamaica Yellow should look like: http://www.abads.net/brugmansia_jamaica_yellow.htm :^)
- Tom Hulse
Tom, thank you for clearing that up. Congratulations on your new position!
Veronica