Only 5 seedlings?
This makes me wonder,
whether when we select for certain trait that we think desirable, we may also do away with the fertility, flowering capability etc... trait of the original species. What I mean is, a plant with a smaller flower or less desirable color may generate a lot of viable seeds (but we do not breed those plants)
I also wonder about the reputation of certain species to be hard to raise, slow to grow, difficult to flower.
In nature, any plant that produces the most viable seeds will get to increase in number.
With Phrags when you deal with complex crosses (involving multiple species) you get less and less germination over time. You usually get the most germination with primary crosses, or if you keep crossing species with the same number of chromosomes. In Phalaenoposis for example all species have the same number of chromosomes, thus you are able to make very complex crosses, and usually (depending on ploidy level) each hybrid is fertile.
In this case (crossing Phrag. Calurum with boissierieanum) you are dealing with different number of chromosomes in each parent. Also the Phrag. Calurum may have an uneven number of chromosomes, making it partially sterile, and thus only 5 seedlings were able to germinate.
The viablity of the seed (being able to germinate or not) has nothing to do with the vigor however. This plant is pretty vigourous (just as vigourous as it's boissierianum parent). Also luckily with Phrag seedlings, even though you sometimes get very low germination, you still can get multiple plants out of a cross, due to proliferation of the seedlings in the lab.
And it is true that some breeders overlook other qualities (like vigor, fragrance etc) when they are selecting for certain traits. But it is usually a trade off.
Robert
