Subject:     Re: Ed Murray is diploid
Sent:        7/21/99 11:49 PM
To:          Peter F. Mueller

Peter,

The daylily world owes you an enormous debt of gratitude for counting ED
MURRAY's chromosomes and resolving (more or less) the issue of its ploidy. From
your chromosome-counting I would say that "not quite diploid" would be an
accurate description; this would explain the triploid-like low-fertility
behavior when crossing ED MURRAY with tetraploids. This would also explain the
behavior I'm seeing in "Hexxed" this year, which is certainly acting like a
not-quite-tetraploid (42 or 46 chromosomes, perhaps, instead of 44, or maybe
44 chromosomes with some sort of aberration present).

Regardless, it is clear that ED MURRAY and (some of) its children have
"special", or polyploid, pollen which occasionally provides 33 chromosomes when
set on diploids and 22 chromosomes when used with tetraploids, producing
tetraploid plants. Or, maybe in some cases, not-quite-tetraploid plants, as
John Benz has noticed low pod fertility in some of his red tets that have ED
MURRAY parentage.

To be sure you really counted ED MURRAY's chromosomes (and not some other
plant), look at the pollen under a strong magnifying glass or low-power
microscope. It will appear crystalline with scattered very large pollen grains.

I will be sending you some plants in the fall to grow and test (in the spring
of 2000?), after I'm done hybridizing with them and harvesting the seed.

/Nick