Multicellular living organisms and unmodified parts thereof and – Plant – seedling – plant seed – or plant part – per se – Higher plant – seedling – plant seed – or plant part
Reexamination Certificate
1998-10-09
2002-03-05
Hutzell, Paula (Department: 1638)
Multicellular living organisms and unmodified parts thereof and
Plant, seedling, plant seed, or plant part, per se
Higher plant, seedling, plant seed, or plant part
C800S260000
Reexamination Certificate
active
06353162
ABSTRACT:
BACKGROUND OF THE INVENTION
The present invention relates to novel varieties of New Guinea impatiens plants, botanically known as Impatiens
hawkeri,
and methods for reproducing the same. More particularly the invention relates to New Guinea impatiens plants having a flower with a novel, random, multi-colored pattern. The invention also relates to novel New Guinea impatiens plants that produce multiple sports off a single seedling. The invention further relates to novel New Guinea impatiens plants that have multiple flowers off multiple pedicels of a single peduncle.
Impatiens plants are one of the most popular garden plants due to their versatility. Sales of impatiens varieties are currently estimated at 250 million dollars per year. They are favorites for beds, borders, pots and hanging baskets. Impatiens require relatively little maintenance. And they have a relatively long blooming season, generally ranging through summer and fall. When impatiens plants drop their faded flowers, new flowers come to replace the ones dropped. This is not the case for other flowering plants such as Geraniums.
Impatiens are available as single or double flowering plants. But not all single flowering varieties are available as doubles. Generally the double flowering varieties are sterile and do not produce seeds. Because of this, double flower forms are propagated asexually.
The three commercially significant species of impatiens are
hawkeri,
more commonly known as “New Guinea”,
walleriana,
and
balsamina.
The
hawkeri
species does not cross with the
walleriana
species. Nor is it believed to cross with
balsamina.
Although
walleriana
impatiens plants generally are more stable and vigorous than New Guinea impatiens,
walleriana
flowers are smaller and less bright than New Guinea impatiens flowers. In addition to having larger, brighter flowers, New Guinea plants are larger and hold their petals longer. Because the New Guinea varieties do not interbreed with the
walleriana
varieties, it is not possible through normal breeding practices to transfer desirable flower characteristics and other genetic characteristics between
hawkeri
and
walleriana
varieties. For example, there is one variety of
walleriana
with flowers speckled with two or more color patterns marketed by Ball Seed Company of West Chicago, Ill., for example, under the names Mosaic Lilac and Mosaic Rose. See Ball Seed Company Catalog, 1998-99, p.31. Such a variety is not known in the New Guinea impatiens species.
The lucrative market for impatiens plants is not content with existing varieties of New Guinea impatiens. New Guinea impatiens plants were introduced for commercialization only relatively recently, in about 1972. See D. A. Bailey, Commercial Production of New Guinea Impatiens, Horticulture Leaflet 526, rev'd April 1995-Author Reviewed April 1997, North Carolina Cooperative Extension Service, North Carolina State University. Accordingly, there is still substantial demand for additional aesthetic varieties. Gardeners are continually looking for a wider range of aesthetic options to stand alone or complement other aspects of their gardens. Unfortunately, existing varieties of New Guinea impatiens have not been well developed due to the species relatively recent commercial introduction. Consequently, among other things, they offer relatively little choice beyond solid color flowers and bicolor flowers in a relatively small range of fixed color patterns.
The flower coloration of currently available commercial New Guinea impatiens cultivars encompasses three basic configurations. These are solid colored flowers without an eye, as in Electra Hot White, U.S. Plant Pat. No. 10,259 to Cosner; solid colors with an eye of another color, as in Electra Royale, U.S. Plant Pat. No. 10,300 to Cosner; and star patterns, as in Lasting Impressions Ambiance, U.S. Plant Pat. No. 8,903, assigned to Oglevee Ltd.
Referring to
FIG. 1
of this specification, four examples of the conventional New Guinea impatiens flower types are shown, along with a novel flower according to the present invention (center flower). The flower on the far left is a conventional solid colored flower named ‘Jolana’ with a slightly pronounced eye. To the immediate right of ‘Jolana’, is a conventional solid colored flower named ‘Electra Royale’ with a more pronounced eye. As mentioned, the center flower to the right of ‘Electra Royale’ is one example of a novel flower of the present invention that is named ‘ElRed’. This flower is shown to demonstrate some novel features of the present invention relative to the conventional varieties shown. This novel flower and others are described in more detail below. To the immediate right of ‘ElRed’ is a conventional bright-eye type flower named ‘Woya’ with a pronounced eye. The flower on the far right, next to ‘Woya’, is a conventional star type flower named ‘Ambiance’. Each of the foregoing conventional flowers are commercially available from different distributors.
Plant breeders face a persisting challenge of producing a series of a plant that can be potted or bedded together to create a grouping of plants that look and grow the same but which can produce a variety of flower effects. This creates a desirable and commercially-important aesthetic effect. The challenge in achieving such an effect persists because plants with different flower colors and patterns normally are produced by plants with different genetic backgrounds. While it may be possible to select plants with different genetic backgrounds that appear to have similar growth habits in a controlled green house environment, the growth habits of the plants may be quite different when introduced into the environment provided by the end user. The differences may cause the potted or bedded plants to vary in size, shape, flowering time etc., creating unacceptable aesthetic effects. Accordingly there is a need for breeding stock that can produce different flower colors and patterns but which grow and resemble each other in all other respects.
In practice, to overcome the drawbacks of using plants with different genetic backgrounds to form a series, breeders have looked for plants showing two more sports (hereinafter “multiple sports”). In the context of this discussion, a sport is a portion of a plant having different colors or color patterns than the color and color patterns of other flowers on the same plant. Plants producing two or more sports are commercially advantageous because plants propagated from each sport type will have the identical growth habits. Each sport type may be asexually reproduced and sold together as a series.
X-rays or chemical mutagens have been typically used to induce multiple sports off a single seedling. This process is unpredictable and has a low yield. Moreover, it is expensive, inconvenient, and inherently dangerous to use x-ray labs or chemical mutagens to induce the sports. A simpler, less expensive, safer, and more predictable process of producing asexually reproducible sports off a single seedling would be desirable and advantageous.
Conventional New Guinea impatiens plants also suffer the drawback of blossoming only a single flower per peduncle. Some New Guinea impatiens cultivars may have two or more peduncles fused at their bases. Examples of such plants include the commercial varieties Celebration ‘Purple Star’, Ball Flora Plant, West Chicago, Ill. and ‘Bonaire’ (U.S. Plant Pat. No. 9,137) Paul Ecke Ranch, Encinitas, Calif. The flowers produced from fused peduncles suffers the problem of holding the flowers too tightly to the foliage, making the inflorescence less dramatic. In some non-New Guinea plant species the inflorescence is more dramatic because the peduncle produces multiple pedicels, each of which produces a single flower held above the foliage by the pedicels. For example, the
walleriana
impatiens species has varieties that produce multiple pedicels from a single peduncle. The flowers of the plant are held above the foliage. A plant with two pedicels per peduncle doubles the number of flowers per plant. A p
Cosner Harlan
Ganz, Esq. Bradley M.
Hutzell Paula
Kimball Melissa L.
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