Violets sport - what does it mean and how did it appear?

Saintpaulia is one of the most popular indoor plants. It is often called the violet for its resemblance to real violets. Moreover, this word sounds more beautiful and romantic. These beautiful and so beloved by many flowers are actually very interesting and not difficult to grow at home.

This plant was discovered by Baron Walter von Saint-Paul in 1892. Botanist Hermann Wendland singled it out as a separate genus and named it after the baron's family. Saintpaulias appeared in Europe at the end of the 19th century and soon became extremely popular all over the world. Now we can easily recognize indoor violets by their short stem, leathery leaves with villi and beautiful, of a wide variety of shades, flowers with five petals, which are collected in a brush. Today, more than thirty thousand varieties of indoor violets are known.

Under the word "sport" in the cultivation culture of Saintpaulias, flower growers mean violet children that arose in the process of gene mutation and did not inherit the maternal color. This refers to a change in color and shape not only of flowers, but also of leaves. Often, sport appears when breeding two or three-colored Saintpaulias. Sometimes such children are even more beautiful than the mother plant, but breeders still classify sports as marriage.

As noted earlier, there are currently a huge number of Saintpaulia varieties. Many people who are not familiar with the intricacies of breeding rules often have a question, what are these mysterious capital letters in front of the names of varieties of violets. The answer is very simple. These letters most often represent the initials of the breeder who bred it. For example, LE means Elena Lebetskaya, RS - Svetlana Repkina.

This variety was bred by Tatyana Lvovna Dadoyan in 2010. This is a light-loving, slow-growing Saintpaulia up to fifteen centimeters high. She has large double white flowers with a pink tint in the center and a spectacular crimson edging. The leaves are large, dark green, wavy at the edges.

The author of this bright variety of Saintpaulias is the breeder Konstantin Morev. Medium-sized plant with small green leaves with wavy edges. Flowers can be regular or semi-double dark red in the center and white at the edges, they are similar in shape to pansies. The petals of this violet are framed by graceful greenish ruffles.

A variety of the famous breeder Elena Anatolyevna Lebetskaya, who created more than three hundred new varieties of violets. This semi-mini Saintpaulia has large wine-red flowers with corrugated edges, similar to pansies. The texture of the petals is very silk-like to the touch. This variety has charming not only flowers, but also variegated wavy leaves.

This violet has large double flowers of a bright fuchsia shade, edged with a highly corrugated light green fringe, reminiscent of lace.The rosette is compact, wavy leaves in the shape of a heart, reddish below. Flowering is long-lasting and abundant. This is a difficult cultivar to grow, demanding in terms of keeping conditions. Forms sports with pink or white-pink flowers, light-colored leaves and petioles.

The variety was bred by Svetlana Repkina in 2009. It is a standard sized Saintpaulia with wavy green leaves. She has large, simple or semi-double flowers of bright blue color, corrugated at the edges. There is a fringe on the tips of the petals. If the buds are formed at a warm temperature, then the fringe may be absent.

Moscow breeder Alexei Pavlovich Tarasov, also known as Fialkovod, bred this variety in 2015. This plant has large raspberry-coral flowers that look like pansies. The leaves are pointed, dark green, toothed and slightly wavy. This saintpaulia has a standard size.

This variety has very unusual gray-purple flowers with an ash tint. The blue-lilac flowers have a gray corrugated border, and at the edge of the petal, the lilac color turns into a dark purple shade saturated with green. A border of green fringes runs along the edges of the petals. This saintpaulia has a long flowering, in the process of wilting "gray hair" appears more distinctly. The leaves of this spectacular violet are variegated and wavy, with a white border. LE Dauphine is a sport from this variety.

A standard violet with large purple-lilac semi-double flowers with translucent veins and a light border. On peduncles there are up to those buds. The leaves of this variety are very beautiful: large with green-white variegation. From a lot of fertilizers, they can turn green and lose their originality.

This Saintpaulia of the size standard has large semi-double of amazing beauty bright coral flowers, strewn with blue contrasting blotches. The leaves are large and variegated (white-green shades), slightly wavy. A plant of a standard size, but with a large rosette. Children of this variety grow without problems and quickly. This violet gives a lot of blue and pink sports, the fixed ones are LE-Asia and LE-Aisha.

Whichever variety of Saintpaulia you choose to grow, these flowers will give you a lot of positive emotions. And who knows what your passion for violets will grow into, because eminent breeders also once began their journey with the purchase of the first violets for their collection.

For information on the differences between Variety and Sport violets, see the video.