Yellow Clivia Groups

Rudo Lötter
2 May 2000

A point of great importance, which yellows are true and which are not, we now know that all yellows or near yellows are true breeding if paired with the right genetic partner.  Bill Morris is currently attempting to group all the known plants in to two genetic groups. Perhaps the egroup can assist him with his quest.

The first group (Group 1) refers to the majority of yellow plants, the origin of these plants are from Kwazulu Natal, e.g.. Howick falls, Eshowe area. Their distinguishing characteristics are uniformly coloured flowers and seed pods, the flowers range from light yellow to dark yellow and peach.  The seed pods can be yellow or yellowish green, or peach in the case of Chubb’s Peach.

• Clivia’s belonging to this genetic group (Group 1) are:

• Kirstenbosch yellow and all of it’s offspring

• Howick Yellow

• Eshowe Yellow

• Watkins Yellow

• Karkloof Yellow, probably the same plant as Howick

• Holmes Yellows

• Vico Yellow

• Vico Gold

• Kewensis strain yellows

• Flowerdale yellow

• Col Pitman

• Walters Yellow

• Morris Yellow

 Also all of my own yellows, all the yellows I have from Nakamura and most of the other Clivia growers yellows, all belong in this group, as well as Chubb’s Peach.

The second genetic group (Group 2) is very rare in cultivation and only a few known plants belong to this group, although I do not have concrete evidence I firmly believe that all of these plants originated from the Eastern Cape (Former Transkei area) and this unique genetic mutation did indeed developed in isolation from the Natal group. Plants belonging to this group are distinguished from the first group by both the flowers and the seed pods, the flowers can range from pale cream to deep peach, sometimes with small red spots on the petals, these red spots may change with growing conditions from none to numerous, the seed pods are always two coloured, the base colour being a nice golden yellow, with a pink blush or red spots.  Please note that if one crosses a Group1 Yellow with a Group 2 Yellow all the offspring will be orange split for both types, and in the F2 generation it is then possible to get group1 yellows, group2 yellows, group1 split for group 2 and vise versus as well as yellows which will be group1 and group 2 combined. This mix up in genetic material leads to confusion and the result will be that one can not guarantee your seed to be yellow, because a lot of orange offspring will result from such crosses. It is there for important to cross breed plants of the same group with each other, in order to keep the strain pure.

Plants belonging to group 2 are:

• Natal Yellow also known as Giddy Yellow, Jardine and Gibelo Yellow

• Cynthia’s Best also known as Natal Yellow A

• Transkei Yellow

• Apple Blossom also from the Transkei

• Pat’s Gold

 Please note that I have removed plants from this list as was noted in the clivia news letter Volume eight, number one, the reason for this is that we have already proved that Naude’s Peach do not belong to this group and are stilling awaiting the results of some of the other plants.

It is very much possible that there can be a third and even a fourth genetic group, for example Miriam’s Picotee does not seem to fit in any one of these groups as well as Meyer’s peach and Ndwedwe Peach, which are all probably colour variants or freaks and not mutations, only time could tell.