Gerbera jamesonii H. Bolus ex Hook: In Vitro Production of Haploids

Abstract

The genus Gerbera(Compositae), established in 1737 by Gronovius, counts today about 45 herbaceous species of perennials that occur mainly in South Africa and Asia (Bowe et al. 1979). The best known among these species and the only one to be horticulturally important is G. jamesonii. This species was discovered in 1878 by the Austrian botanist Rehmann in the Transvaal and was so named by Bolus after the English botanist Jameson (Bowe et al. 1979). Nowadays, the species is also known under the name of lTansvaal daisy. Its first official description was given by Hooker, although Bolus had already described it in a short note (Bowe et al. 1979). The sample studied by Hooker was sent to Kew in 1888, where the plant flowered the following year. In 1891, Lynch, curator of the Cambridge Botanic Garden crossed G. jamesonii H. Bolus ex Hook with another species, G. viridijolia Schultz Bip and the hybrid progeny was designated as G. × cantabrigiensis, a name soon abandoned (Bowe et al. 1979). From that moment, most of the records are lost on the crosses performed on Gerbera jamesonii, although it is well established that the development of the present forms of Gerbera is essentially due to intraspecific breeding, and other species do not seem to have contributed to the development of the modern varieties