8 comments for “Can you confirm name of this mini please?

  1. Noeline and Donald,

    At the risk of offending some, here is my honest opinion. ‘Mite’ was registered in the mid 1960’s by Grant Mitsch although it is of “Irish Origin” and much, much older than the decade in which it was registered. There is the potential for at least two “issues” here. Possibility One: The stock is virused. Some latent viruses will show little or no streaking in the foliage but will show with lightened color with few or any other symptoms. Possibility Two: “Look-Alike” substitutions have been made by unknown parties somewhere in the bulb trade.

    If you look carefully at the DaffSeek photos that have been submitted as ‘Mite’, to me, it seems as if there are at least two different flowers in the photos. Kirby Fong’s photo (#29183: second from left) looks to me to be what I have seen on show benches and what I grow as ‘Mite’. Friend Hein Meeuwissen’s excellent photo (#24453; right most photo) seems as if it is almost another cultivar entirely. This last seems a perfect match for your photo.

    To sum up, my sense is that what you are growing is what is being sold in the general bulb trade as Sir John Gore-Booth’s splendid cultivar ‘Mite’.

  2. Hi Steve. Yes I observed that on Daffseek and agree that mine looks very close to the image you refer to. Very interesting. I would be keen to know if anyone if New Zealand is growing the one with the more reflexed and curving petals. Thank you for your comments.

  3. Mite, as I know it in NZ is similar to the Meeuwissen one. Who knows, it may be the one commonly grown in the US that is incorrect. I have not noticed virus on my version of the cultivar. Ours in NZ is generally considered too big to be a miniature.

    Dave

     

     

     

  4. With all due respect, there is simply too much provenance for ‘Mite’ that firmly establishes it from it’s introductory timeframe and even before. Note that it was included in 1963 “ADS Miniatures List” There are plenty of photos of ‘Mite’ from Grant Mitsch, Wells Knerim, Jim Liggett and many other photographers from past times. There are still A. D. S. Members that were original purchasers from that time.

    ‘Mite’ was inexpensive (.35 cents to .50 cents depending on the year!) and widely distributed. The current, lighter colored version with not quite the same corona proportions seems to have shown up in the trade 10 to 15 years ago. Un-warranted, look alike replacements have been talked about and noticed behind the scenes and are a concern to the ADS Miniatures Committee. This is NOT an isolated occurrence with this cultivar only.

     

  5. I’m inclined to agree with Steve about the provenance of ‘Mite’ as grown in the U.S.  I checked the Mitsch catalogs in Dafflibrary and found the earliest listing in 1940, when there were none for sale.  The 1948 catalog describes it thus:

    MITE (Booth) 6.  9 in.  A small flower coming very early in the season.  Rather closely resembles its parent, Cyclamineus, in general form but is larger and the petals do not reflex as much.  I believe we have the only existing commercial stock of this.  It is quite a good increaser and is very floriferous.  We have had some interesting seedlings from it.  $2.50 each.

    Though my image on DaffSeek gives a copyright date of 2005, the date on the slide mount says it’s from 1989.  The bulbs would have come from Grant Mitsch.

    As Steve said, look alike replacements appear in the trade.

  6. I think this discussion clears up a few things. Firstly what we grow in NZ as Mite may actually be an imposter. Secondly it explains why ours is too big for a miniature in contrast to the one on the ADS List about which we have had questions.

    Dave

  7. David and others, I grow Mite here in middle TN.  It is the brightly colored one, not the pale one, purchased in 2001 from Brent & Becky.  Here it needs to picked early to be a miniature.  I think one year I mistakenly put a Mite in a Division 6 collection and it didn’t look odd (but the collection was disqualified).  ;->  I’ll try to remember to take some photos of it with a ruler next spring.
    Becky Fox Matthews, that daffy girl near Nashville, TN

  8. David, et. al.

    I took ‘Mite’ 6Y-Y miniature from the late Marie Bozievich’s borders where she grew a lot of them, naturalized.  Her/My ‘Mite’ looks a little like N. cyclamineus, but the corona is overly long and slender, and the petals are well swept back but much longer than N. cyclamineus and not held as rigid.  I have seen ‘Mite’ shown and have shown it here in the Mid- Atlantic states and I believe I have the one named ‘Mite.’  I don’t believe the one pictured above and shown that started this chain is the same as we show here in the Mid-Atlantic States. It looks more like ‘Small Talk’ in the picture above.

     

    Clay

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