Cultivar
B. ‘Zipper’
Photos
3 photos
Identity
- Genus
- Begonia
- Name
- B. ‘Zipper’
- Originator
- Bob Cole
- Date of Origin
- 1973
- Publication Date
- 1976
- Place
- Reseda, Ca.
- Country
- USA
- Region
- America
- Plant Type
- Rhizomatous
- Female Parent
- B. conchifolia var. rubrimacula
- Male Parent
- B. ‘Bow-Nigra’
- ABS No
- 561
- Publication Reference
- ABS;B77 a128
- Article References
- The Begonian (44) April 1977, p. 88-106.
Plant
- Description
- ZIP'S CHILDREN Cover photo of Begonia 'Zippo' by Bob Cole, Reseda, Calif. Begonia 'Zippo' is only one of a set of related hybrids recently developed at the Plant Shop's Botanical Gardens. They are small plants with medium sized leaves of heavy substance and are hardy and easy to grow. Pink flowers and creeping rhizomes are also traits which this group possesses. The five delightful cultivars of B. 'Zip' and B. 'Bow- Nigra' are called B. 'Zippo', B. 'Zipper', B. 'Bowzip', B. 'Zippy' and B. Charles Rick'. The begonia collector will have to be careful of his plant labels and descriptions because, at least on paper, this group can be somewhat confusing. Bob Cole chose as the seed parent a little plant which is included in many begonia collections. The original plant was called "Zip" by Sylvia Leatherman who thought the plant identification number resembled a postal zip code. Jack Golding through his studies concluded that "Zip" was a variety of the species Begonia conchifolia var. rubrimacula. Rudy Ziesenhenne feels that it is a specific cultivar hybrid and refers to it as B. conchifolia 'Zip'. The pollen parent in all five cases was B. 'Bow Nigra', a cross of B. bowerae and B. heracleifolia var. nigricans. It is a small rhizomatous plant with dark markings on toothed leaves. All five of Cole's cultivars have peltate leaves. B. 'Bowzip' is the only one without the central red dot. Three of them have the dark markings that are characteristic of B. heracleifolia var. nigricans: B. 'Zipper', B. 'Zippy', and B. 'Bowzip'. Both B. 'Zippo' and B. 'Charles Rick' have marginal stitching. This trait of B. bowerae is so dominant that it appears in hybrids much removed from the species. Two more B. 'Zip' cultivars hybridized by Bob Cole have B. bowerae var. nigramarga as the pollen parent. They are whimsically named B. 'White Bellybutton' and B. 'Red Bellybutton'. As miniature rhizomatous plants, they are suited for windowsill and table top culture. The dark edged leaves are light green with characteristic B. bowerae eye lashing. The single most important distinguishing feature is the color of the central dot. Glen Lewis, also of the Plant Shop's staff, worked with crosses of B. 'Zip' and B. 'Cleopatra' to develop a series of small windowsill plants. Here again the central red dot appears in cultivars with the names B. 'Glen Lewis', B. 'Glen's conchifolia and designated it as Be- Zip', and B. 'Lewis's Zip'. The leaves of these three are different in appearance. Another related cultivar with B. 'Cleopatra', is B. 'Bill Cook' which is a large, unusual, erect plant of heavy substance. It has sturdy cane-like stems and leaves with an oak-leaf shape and silver blotching. The red color is apparent only in some of the veins. At the San Diego Show exhibited among the new introductions were two other B. 'Zip' crosses, one called - B. 'William Cook' and the other B. - 'Billiam'. The pollen parent for these two cultivars was the large rhizomatous B. macdougalii var. purpurea. The latter has large compound leaves, which are heavily palmate, and a thick rhizome. Bob Cole was also responsible for these crosses. This does not exhaust the list of cultivars that have resulted from the experimentation with B. 'Zip' at the Botanical Gardens. There were several more on display at the San Diego Show. A number of them appear in the lists of new ABS registrations for February, March and May.
Lineage
Parents
Ancestry tree
Descendants
No recorded descendants.
Culture
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