Hi all. I don't usually post my articles here but I thought some of you might be interested in all the neat stuff I learned while I was writing about variegated plants. It was in yesterday's paper but they didn't make it a feature article, editted it a bit and didn't use my photos. Anyway, I never knew that ANY plant can produce a variegated mutant. The guy that I wrote about has been collecting variegated plants with his son for something like 8 years and they have a neat website. I was disappointed that the paper didn't list the website because the guy went to a lot of work on it. Here is his website and the ORIGIANL (uneditted article) follows.
Randy and Sherm's Rare and Variegated Plants

Here are some of the rarer variegated plants that they have collected:
Some of the more unusual specimens we have aquired are: Alocasia odora
albo variegata "Okinawa Silver", Alocasia frydek variegata, Aglaonma
modestum albo variegatum, a few different variegated Anthuriums,
Colocasia esculenta "Yellow Splash", 4 different variegated Monsteras,
Syngonium wendlandii variegata, Philodendron domesticum rubra aureo
variegatum, variegated Pony Tail Palms, variegated Desert Rose,
variegated Crown of thorns, a few of the rarer variegated Agaves, 3
types of variegated Clivia minata, variegated Tongue Fern (Pyrrosia
lingua variegata), Jatropha curcas variegata, variegated Cymbidium
Orchid, Ficus rumphii variegata, a few types of variegated Brugmansia,
Tubidanthus calyptratus variegatus, Clusea rosea aureo variegata, the
variegated Lady Palm (Rhapis excelsa aureo variegata), variegated Money
Tree (Pachira aquatica variegata, Aristolochia onoei variegata..

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Variegated Plants – Nature’s Colorful Curiosities
copyright 2006
By Betsy S. Franz

Many gardeners have a green thumb. Randy English has a variegated one.

Encouraged at a young age by a mother who loved to garden, English has always had a penchant for plants. But perhaps it was more the influence of his gardening grandfather, who once told him he could grow eggplant by planting eggs and jelly by planting jellybeans, that led English to create his current collection of curious plants. For English, the best plants are those that are mutants.

“My son, Sherm, and I started collecting variegated plants about eight years ago,” English said. “We drove up to Daytona Beach looking for an unusual (non-variegated) plant called a Tacca, also known as a black bat flower plant. The man who had that plant for sale had a whole collection of variegated plants. When he started explaining what causes the variegations in plants, he got us both hooked.”

A variegated plant is any plant that has more than one color in the foliage . To Florida gardeners, some of these plants are quite common. Crotons, caladiums, and coleus are all variegated plants which are abundant in Brevard landscapes. And although many gardeners love these colorful specimens as bright additions to their gardens, few people know that these plants are all actually mutants.

“I believe that all variegated plants are actually mutations,” said B. Frank Brown, owner of Valkaria Tropical Gardens in South Brevard. Brown has been studying and collecting variegated plants for over 40 years and has written books on some of his favorites, including crotons, aglaonemas (Chinese evergreens) and cordylines (Ti plants). “I’ve brought in 100’s of new variegated plants from Southeast Asia, I’ve found some as mutations on my own plants and I’ve also cross-pollinated and created some.”

“Even the very colorful crotons originally started as all green plants on an island in Indonesia,” Dr. Brown said. “I’ve been to Indonesia tracing the croton’s origin. The original all green croton variegated a spotted croton which in turn variegated another spotted croton. From there, people started crossing them and creating cultivars.”

These mutations in plants are the result of an intricate scientific process involving substances like chloroplasts, xanthophylls and anthocyanins.

“In layman’s terms, variegations in plants are created when chlorophyll (the substance that makes leaves green) is absent in part of the leaf,” said Professor Charles Guy, of the University of Florida’s Department of Environmental Horticulture and Plant Molecular and Cell Biology Program. “The variations in color are caused by whatever pigments are present in the leaf where chlorophyll is absent. White areas in foliage means no chlorophyll and nothing to replace it. Yellow patches means no chlorophyll but the presence of xanthophyll. Other colors are created by the presence of a substance called anthocyanins in combination with either chlorophyll or xanthophyll.”

“The variegations come in many different patterns, “English said. “ You have stripes, you have polka dots and you have completely random patterns that look like mosaics.”

Variegation usually follows the natural path of the plant tissue. For plants with long slim leaves like liriope (lily-turf) or ponytail palm, the variegation normally appears as long thin lines that follow the length of the leaf. For other plants, such as caladiums, the variegation follows the plant veins.
“Then you have things like the variegated sea hibiscus, or Mahoe ['Albo-variegatus'],” English said, “Where the colors are just all over the place and don’t seem to follow any pattern.”
Many variegated plants, such as crotons, have been bred specifically to display their colors, but what intrigued Randy and Sherm was the knowledge that in almost any species, something can happen to the chemical makeup to create a mutant plant that will appear variegated. It was this knowledge that started the English’s quest for plant oddities. So although they do have some common variegated plants and even some rare non-variegated plants in their collection of 400 or so plants, their favorite hobby is searching for the odd-balls.
“It’s a fun challenge for us,” Randy English said. “Sherm and I will go to a nursery and we’ll both head out and see who will be first to find a variegated plant mixed in with the regular plants. We have found things like a variegated Florida Coontie, a Fatsia japonica variegata, a variegated Washingtonia Palm, a variegated White Bird of Paradise, and even a variegated jalapeno,
cauliflower and collard green.”

While variegated plants in nurseries are not that uncommon, finding one in the wild is a bit of a rarity. The reason for this goes back to the cause of plant variegation. Chloryphyll is the substance in plants that allows it to create food from sunlight. So the lack of chloryphyll means less food getting out to the plant, typically making variegated plants somewhat weaker than their non-variegated counterparts. In a nursery or a home landscape, these mutant variegated species will survive. But in the wild, the variegated species are often overrun by their all green counterparts.

Despite their rarity, the English’s are always on the lookout for variegated plants in the wild.

“We have found a few variegated plants in the wild,” English said. “We’ve found a variegated Saltmarsh Mallow and two types of variegated Crownsbeard. We’ve even found some variegated St. Augustine grass, a gold Brazillian pepper tree and some variegated poison ivy!”

Randy and his son have also learned how the delicate balance – or imballance - of chloryhll in their variegated specimens can present its own challenges. Under certain circumstances, some variegated plants have a tendency to start to revert to all green.

“Sometimes if you fertilize a variegated plant or give it too much light, it will become unvariegated,” English said. “Or a variegated plant will start putting out all green shoots. Since the green shoots are genetically stronger, you should cut them off to help the plant revert to being variegated.”

“It happens quite frequently,” explained Dr. Brown. “A green plant has a mutation which is variegated. You will grow the variegated plant and all of a sudden it will put out a green mutation. The green mutation will be stronger than the variegated plant so you have to cut it off. If you don’t get rid of it, it will take the plant back [to all green] again.”
“It happens a lot with the arboricola,” Dr. Brown said. “The aboricola is the miniature schefferla that everyone uses. These plants have a tendency to revert to green and you need to take the green off.”
The delicate nature of variegated plants does have its benefits. First, most variegated plants do wonderfully in shade, where their lighter tones and colors are a welcome addition. In fact, some variegated plants are as sensitive to bright sunlight as a fair-haired blonde would be. Although they generally grow slower than their all green counterparts, this makes them less likely to outgrow a small space as quickly.

Besides natural mutation, other factors can also make a plant appear variegated. “I’ve read that herbicides, mineral deficiencies, and viruses, among other things, can make a plant look variegated,” English said. ”I’ve even heard of people trying to make plants variegated by doing things like putting seeds in their pockets when they go in for x-rays.”

English has never tried to create any of his own mutant varieties. And to his knowledge, he has never discovered a new species in his quest for plant oddities. However, he and his son have spent countless hours searching for plants, photographing them and researching their botanical names so they can share their new found knowledge with others on an extensive website. (http://www.rarevariegatedplants.com/). But to them, their scientific forays into the world of plant oddities is just a fun hobby.

Of course, that’s probably what Dr. Brown said many years ago when he first got interested in variegated plants. Since then, he has taken hundreds of trips to jungles all over the world in search of unusual plants to bring home, cultivate and create new species of his own. He has written several books, holds patents on 20 different plant hybrids that he has developed, and has turned his Valkaria property into a variegated plant lovers paradise, full of crotons, bromeliads, bamboos, ti plants and many other tropical beauties. Through his many years of plant study and garden tours, he has educated an untold number of visitors to the joys of variegated and tropical plants. Even with more than 40 years of personal research and the National Gardening Association’s seal of approval (they have called his garden one of the premier gardens of the U.S.) Dr. Brown (whose doctorate is in education) is still quick to discount the importance of his acquired knowledge. “I am not a trained botanist,” Brown is fond of saying. “While I have written the only books on some plants, I have never had a course in botany.”
At the age of 89, Dr. Brown is still studying and teaching other’s about the curiosities and wonders of plants.
“The new fashion now is with dark plants,” Brown explained. “I have been bringing in some plants from Thailand that have almost black foliage. I’ve got a number of black plants. You know that the Dutch have spent millions trying to get a black tulip and the rose people have spent almost as much trying to get a black rose. But the best they can come up is a deep dark purple.”
When asked what would make the foliage look black, Brown answered “I’m not even sure the botanists know the answer to that one.”

That could grow into a full story for another Florida-based publication. I've heard Dr. Brown commenting about the fashion for black plants, then I spotted mixed hanging baskets at Lowes featuring nearly-black Coleus.

The English website is pretty amazing.

And I've never figured out how caladiums have enough chlorophyll to make enough food to make a living. My big bed of "gingerland" caladiums is in its glory right now.

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wavewatcher - >ww - >wavewatcher, again

I already have another editor that wants and article on variegated plants from me as well as an article on Dr. Brown.

And apparently one of those other substances in plants that take the place of chloryphyll can also produce food. However, the reason there is no such thing as an entirely white leaf is because there are no substances in there to produce food.

Great article Betsy, I had a variegated lemon tree for a short time. It was suppose to produce pink lemons. It would flower, but never produced any fruit so I got rid of it.

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Enjoy the ride, cause you never know when or where it may end.

http://www.doneggert.com/

good one backyarder!

Here is a variegated sabal palm grown in West Melbourne

I also had the same problem with the variagated pink lemon. One of the hurricanes took care of it for me though. That variagated sabal palm is unreal. I wonder if Jerry Hooper ever gets seeds off of it? Do you think it will come true to seed?

This picture was taken at Jerry Hooper's plant sale last year.