A Star is born: by Carrie Kruger, Utopia Clivias

The name “Star Green” makes every clivia grower “green” with envy. This unusual coloured clivia is so unique that it stands out from any other. This is the type of plant that takes clivia breeding to a new level. Being one of the lucky few breeders who were very fortunate to get hold of a Star Green plant when they were first released by Charl Malan and Philip Crous, I have done a lot of breeding with this plant but have not seen many results yet.

My seedlings with Star green are not yet flowering size, but once they have flowered, I will do another article on the results of these crosses, and the crosses of other breeders. I have used pollen of Star Green 2 on a Picotee interspecific when it flowered for the first time and was brought to the EP show by Charl. I have in the meantime acquired this sibling and three others to add to my collection of the Star Green range of plants. I have named them, Star Green 2 (very similar to Star Green), Star Bronze (a beautiful bronze with lots of white and green in the centre), and Star Struck (a pastel bronze with lots of white and green in the centre).  Cromwell Bronze has beautiful bronze flowers with an unusual white and green centre. Having bred with all of these, I look forward to seeing these crosses flower soon. Two of my crosses with Star Green 2 as pollen parent flowered last season. The green stem seedling was a dark butter yellow with some green in the flower. The pigmented stemmed seedling had very similar colours to Star Green. I call this one Tartan Green.  I know now that the pigmented stems will give more interesting results.

The history of Star Green is not very well known and the little bit of information I could find, is as follows:

In 1997 Charl Malan received seed from Mr. Nakamura. It was an exchange transaction. These seeds were of 31 different crosses. Charl and Philip simply numbered the batches 1-31.

The seed batch which was numbered no.13 was described by Mr. Nakamura as “Special Seed”

Charl grew 15 of these seeds and Philip grew the other 9.

Out of this no.13 batch came the famous “Charl`s Green”, Star Green and the Cromwell Bronze range.

These are then in actual fact all sibling plants.

My experience with these plants is that the Star Green plants grow much slower than other clivia and are very susceptible to disease and root rot. They do not self pollinate well, and the pollen has to be harvested as soon as the flower opens, before it goes dry. So working and breeding with these plants take extra special care during pollination.

Both Charl and Philip have sold their “Star Green “plants and suckers. These are now in the hands of a very few lucky breeders to take breeding one step further. Here`s hoping to some unusual coloured clivias in the near future.

Carrie Kruger

Utopia Clivias

Star Green Original

Star Green mature colour change

Star Green opening up