"Sport of" ?

I just found out that the type of Cecile Brunner rose is a 'sport of' Cecile Brunner. Any idea what 'sport of' means??

Thanks for any feedback you can give me! :)

A"sport" is when a plant puts up a flower different than usual. Not quite an explanation, but when a blue flowered plant suddenly produces a white one, for example and the white section keeps putting up a white flower even when planted by itself it is a sport. Colors are imaginary but that is the type of thing which can happen.

What do you mean when you say colors are imaginary?

I think she meant she was just making up the blue flower putting out a white sport as an example (rather than actually knowing of a particular blue flower that had a white sport). In your case, "sport of Cecile Brunner" means that someone was growing a Cecile Brunner rose, and it put out a stem with a flower that looked somehow different--maybe it was a slightly different color, or larger, or some other variation, and your plant was propagated from that.

Thank you ecrane 3--I couldn't think of an example at the time, so made one up. Now true example--I am most familiar with irises. Tall bearded iris "Beverly Sills' is a pink iris with deep pink beards. In one garden it put up a white flower with coral beards. Plants propagated from that area remained white. It was then registered as 'Beverly in White' and was sold commercially under that name.

Sports can be a great source of new plants (cultivars) and many really cool plants, especially variegated ones, have originated from sports. One of my favorite sports is Kaleidoscope Abelia which came from a sport taken off of Little Richard Abelia. If that sport had not occured naturally it would have been very difficult for humans to create the characteristics of Kaleidoscope through traditional methods (cross breeding).
Currently I am working to encourage a sport with pink speckled variegation that is growing from one of my Carolina Jessamines (Gelsemium sempervirens). As far as I know there is no vareigated Gelsemium available in the nursery trade and if I succeed in growing out and rooting my sport, my new cultivar would be the first :)

Do you know who named Little Richard abelia? Little Richard has been a subject of fascination for me since his heyday in the 50's, and I am quite curious about this.

TKS!

Actually, Little Richard Abelia was developed in my neck of the woods and was named by Richard Currin of Currin's Nursery. The little part refers to its compact growth habit. Customers ask me all the time if it was named for The Little Richard.

This is so interesting, thank you. Just curious, is this a very rare occurance? Plantfreak, you said you were 'encouraging' a sport; how in the world do you do this if it is a random occurance? (I can imagine you sitting down with the plant and having a conversation 'I think it would be really great if you would spawn a new cultivar' ) When you are intentionally crossing plants to create new cultivars, this is called hybridization right?

;)

Correct.

The sport that I am encouraging happened naturally. Our nursery received a shipment that had 20 or so Gelsemium. I noticed that one of them had a pink variegated shoot so I took that plant home. In fall I'm going to plant it and in spring I'll prune off almost every shoot that isn't variegated. Sports can be fairly common although certain genera and species are more prone to make sports. However if no one notices or if no one chooses to propagate it, that sport will not really be useful to the public.
A few years ago my boss discovered a sport of an Otto Luyken Laurel in a Wendy's parking lot. Normal Ottos have white flowers; this sport had pale pink flowers. We informed a local plantsman who is well versed in propagation. He took cuttings but they all failed. So the world will have to wait some more for a pink flowered Cherrylaurel.

These are two cuttings from the same Lava Rose coleus. The one on the left is the coloration on the entire plant, and many others like it, except for one stem which had the coloration on the right. I potted that stem up. If the color holds true, this could be considered a sport of the mother plant. It would take several generations with consistent results to get a better idea. They have been grown under identical conditions.

Great info, thanks all, I'll be looking out for this now with my plants!