In
April
2012, The
American Hosta Society president, Doug Beilstein, appointed the AHS
Cultivar
Origination Commission with this mission:
Investigate
origins of Paul Aden’s registrations and report findings to the
International
Registrar for the Genus Hosta
for modifying The Hosta Registry.
The Commission’s first report was
published
in 2012 issue of The Online Hosta Journal
and reprinted in Registration
2012
issue of The Hosta Journal (Vol.
44,
No. R, p. 5). The late Florence M. Shaw was credited as originator of
16 hostas,
and Kevin C. Vaughn as originator of 8 hostas, registered by the late
Paul Aden.
Examples are:
H. ‘Blue
Angel’ (F. Shaw -
1986),
H. ‘Blue
Umbrellas’ (F. Shaw -
1978),
H.
‘Fragrant Blue’ (K. Vaughn - 1988),
H.
‘Fragrant Bouquet’ (K. Vaughn - 1982),
H. ‘Love
Pat’ (F. Shaw - 1978),
H. ‘So
Sweet’ (K. Vaughn -
1986),
H. ‘Sum
and Substance’ (F. Shaw
- 1980) and
H.
‘Zounds’ (F. Shaw - (1978).
Parentage
of Mrs. Shaw’s and Dr. Vaughn’s
hostas was not addressed in the 2012 report. Unfortunately, breeding
records
are lost and the correct pod and pollen parents cannot be identified.
Accordingly,
the Commission now has recommended in The Hosta Registry:
Parentage
of Shaw’s and Vaughn’s originations be listed as Selected seedling. Parentages in Aden’s
registrations are to
be deleted.
The 2012 report credited “Asami” as
originator of H. ‘On Stage’, with a
note that ‘On Stage’ is the same hosta as ‘Chōkō Nishiki’. Originator
of ‘Chōkō
Nishiki’ was possibly thought to be Mr. Hisatoyo Asami of Tokyo, a
long-time
member of The American Hosta Society. An inquiry to Mr. Hisatoyo Asami
determined
that though he purchased the hosta around 1980, he was not its
discoverer or
originator. Furthermore, Mr. Asami does not know who named it.
Accordingly, the
Commission now has recommended in The Hosta Registry:
Originator of ‘On Stage’ be listed as
Unknown.
The
Commission continued its investigations of hostas registered
by and for Paul Aden
in 2013. Findings and recommendations are reported here.
The Hosta Registry lists three (3)
Tardianas that Aden registered for the late Eric Smith: H.
‘Blue Moon’ (1976), H.
‘Dorset Blue’ (1977), and H.
‘Harmony’
(1976). In fact, Aden registered five (5) Tardianas for Smith. H. ‘Hadspen Blue’ and ‘Hadspen Heron’
were incorrectly listed in The Hosta Registry with Peter Ruh as
registrant. Paul
Aden was the actual registrant. (See ‘Hadspen Blue’ and ‘Hadspen Heron’
in Mark Zilis’s The Hostapedia.)
Peter
Ruh was not involved with hosta registrations in 1976 and 1977.
Accordingly, the
Commission recommended in The Hosta Registry:
Registrant
of ‘Hadspen Blue’ (1977) and ‘Hadspen Heron’ (1977) be corrected and P.
Aden be
cited as registrant.
Interestingly, the registrations of
these Tardianas
do not credit Eric Smith as originator. The Commission believed this
was an
opportune time for correction, and, accordingly, recommended in The
Hosta
Registry:
E.
Smith be recognized as originator of ‘Blue Moon’, ‘Dorset Blue’,
‘Hadspen
Blue’, ‘Hadspen Heron’, and ‘Harmony’ in their registrations.
Many
Aden registrations have parentage
with Aden numbered names, like Aden 365 and [H. ‘Aden
81-B1’ × H.
‘Aden 83-B4’]. They have no physical reality and
should be deleted and replaced with Unknown.
On the other hand,
some registrations have
parentage with proper cultivar and species names.
Examples are:
[H.
‘Blue Tiers’ × H.
‘Blue Angel’] for H. ‘Big Mama’,
[Hybrid
of H. Tardiana Group] for H. ‘Blessings’,
[Sport
of H. Amy Aden’] for H.
‘Blonde Elf’,
[Hybrid
of H. ‘Tokudama’] for H. ‘Blue Cadet’ and
[Hybrid
of H. sieboldiana]
for H. ‘Blue
Mammoth’.
Likely,
some of
these parentages are not correct, e.g., ‘Big Mama’, ‘Blessings’, and
‘Blue
Cadet’. Still, they have historical significance and should be
retained. Accordingly,
the Commission recommended in The Hosta Registry:
Except
for hostas credited with
Shaw and Vaughn as originations, Aden registrations not having proper
cultivar or
species names for parentage be listed as Parentage Unknown.
Also,
the Commission recommended in The Hosta Registry:
Original
registration years of Aden
registrations be retained, with mention of alteration year.
Nineteen
(19) hostas have “Abba” in their
cultivar names. This was Paul Aden’s personal identifier and apparently
means
“father”; in other words, a title of honor. Nine (9) “Abba”-named
cultivars were
registered by Aden in 1990 and 10 were registered for Aden by Mark
Zilis in
2010. The Commission concluded that all “Abba”-named hostas should be
credited
to Paul Aden. Accordingly, the
Commission recommended in The
Hosta Registry:
P. Aden be credited as originator of
“Abba”-hostas
registered in 1990.
P. Aden be retained
as originator of "Abba"-hostas
registered in 2010.
Following
are “Abba”-hostas with recommended parentage.
Those with * already were registered with P.
Aden as originator.
'Abba Alive'
|
Unknown
|
'Abba Aloft'
|
Sport
of H. 'Sun Power'
|
'Abba at Large'
|
Sport
of H. 'Sun Power'
|
'Abba Blue Plus'
|
Unknown
|
*'Abba
Diane Reek'
|
Unknown
|
'Abba Double Header'
|
Unknown
|
'Abba Fit'
|
Unknown
|
*'Abba
Flower Mound'
|
Unknown
|
*'Abba
Fragrant Backscratcher'
|
Unknown
|
*'Abba
Fragrant Cloud'
|
Unknown
|
*'Abba
Irresistible'
|
Unknown
|
'Abba Little Showoff'
|
Unknown
|
'Abba Nova'
|
Unknown
|
*'Abba
Ready'
|
Sport
of H. 'Invincible'
|
*'Abba
Rough'
|
Hybrid
of H. 'Tokudama'
|
*'Abba
Soul Mate'
|
Sport
of H. 'Halcyon'
|
'Abba Spellbinder'
|
Unknown
|
'Abba Tops'
|
Unknown
|
*'Abba
Windows'
|
Sport
|
Of
the more than 100 remaining Paul Aden-registrations in The Hosta
Registry, one
thing seems certain: many did not
originate with Paul. Likely originators could be Florence
Shaw, Kevin Vaughn,
Cynthia and Chet Tompkins, and Eric Smith, the famous English
plantsman. Of
course, some likely could be Aden’s own creations. Guesses of possible
originators abounded, but there was a paucity of reliable
information. Conclusive
evidence rarely was available. Thus, additional
recommendations were
sparse.
These
recommendations in the Hosta
Registry were made by the Commission:
P. Aden be credited as originator of H. ‘Shade Fanfare’. It
is a sport of
‘Flamboyant’, found in tissue culture.
Chet (Ch.) Tompkins be credited as
originator
of H. ‘Flamboyant’ and H. ‘Floradora’.
Parentage
of both is Unknown.
Though it is not an Aden registration,
H. ‘Antioch’, registered
by Peter Ruh
and Paul Hofer, was included in the Commission’s discussion. Pete Ruh
has determined
that Cynthia Tompkins originated this hosta; see information in The Hostapedia, p. 76. Accordingly, the
Commission recommended in The Hosta Registry:
Cynthia
(Cy.) Tompkins be credited as originator of H.
‘Antioch’. Parentage is Unknown. P. Ruh and P. Hofer remain
credited as nominants
and registrants.
Having completed its mission, the
Commission submitted this final report to the Hosta Registrar on
October 8,
2013.
AHS Cultivar Origination Commission
Tom Micheletti, Chair
Warren I. Pollock
W.
George Schmid
Mark R. Zilis
|