Did anyone ever noticed that although Bill Seidl stated that Sable is a diploid dark red single Lacti it was originally registered as a F2 from Albiflora x Otto Fröbel.
I guess Sable could be a tet and interesting for breeding and it explains the fertility of Valkyrie and its (supposed) sister seedling Old Soldier. BTW pictures show that Sable (still available in Russia) has a rather poor habitus hence many offspring (Corals etc.) where Otto Fröbel is involved

Dick,

My sense has always been that ‘Person’s Sable x Eclipse’ ( apparently used to produce Val and OS ) was one of those chance seedlings that was particularly difficult to get. It’s tall, and it’s plant habit is pretty terrible, and ( If I have the right plant – I got mine from Don H. ) it’s not nearly as dark red as one might expect from Bill’s description, which leads me to believe that there were not a whole lot of Sable x Eclipse seedlings that Person was able to produce. I was never able to get it to make seeds as a pod parent, both here at my place, nor at the A’s either. But like many odd-ball crosses where only one side of the cross was a tet, I assume that it’s pollen is fertile.

Having said that, I’ve not worked with it much, and I probably should. The reds of the original parents seemed to have come out more in the second generation ( i.e. Val, and OS, one of which I assume is 74H120-2) and show up as well in the third generation in seedlings from the ‘Old Soldier x Valkyrie’ seeds that Bill sent out. I’ve seen…5-6 plants bloomed from this cross ( Nate must have many ! ) and the ones I’ve seen are all characterized by red non-glossy petals. The reds I’ve seen from these OS X Val seedings are all pretty much the same – dark, but not nearly as dark as the blackish-reds that I’ve seen in pictures of ‘Sable” or “Eclipse”. Perhaps because ‘Blushing Princess” does not have much red in it ?

Using ‘Sable x Eclipse’ on something like ‘Mackinac Grand’ might be a better way to drag the really dark blackish-red out of ‘S x E’ ? Mac G freezes it’s carpals every year at my place, so this may be a cross that’s left up to others.

Bob Johnson

I found this quote from Bill, when included as part of this particular conversation, to be quite interesting :

“Wouldn’t ruffling… be great when added into some peony flowers.”

I believe the seeds Bill mentions were some of the seeds I purchased from him, i.e. ‘Old Soldier x Valkyre’ of which a fair percentage  grew out into red doubles.  I selected the pollen from one of them ( field name “Asterisk”, because of it’s “spikey” flowers) to use in a big hybridizing push that I made at the time of it’s first flowering.   Because it was something totally new to me, I crossed it hard with Salmon Dream, Lemon Chiffon, and Blushing Princess.  I grew out perhaps 200+ seedlings, which all bloomed this year, with even more on the way for this coming spring.  Granted that’s a lot of seedlings to select from, but even so, among each of those crosses, a few seedlings from each were notably ruffled, in a particularly noteworthy manner that I’ve not seen in any other peonies that I know of.  Although only the tiniest percentage were red (which seems recessive when used on the pod parents I chose) the determining factor in each seems to be their OS X Val parentage.

I’m not sure how Bill came to include his comments about ruffling in his post above, but given my results, I found it interesting that somehow he included it in a conversation regarding these varieties.

Bob Johnson

While I don’t usually post pictures of my newest seedlings ( heaven only knows what they will look like when grown out further- sometimes they look worse rather than better… ) this should give you some idea of the ruffling I mentioned above.