(C) Daily Kos This story was originally published by Daily Kos and is unaltered. . . . . . . . . . . Street Prophets Coffee Hour: The Shasta Daisy [1] ['This Content Is Not Subject To Review Daily Kos Staff Prior To Publication.'] Date: 2023-08-28 This is an Open Thread / Coffee Hour and all topics of conversation are welcome. Did you know the Shasta Daisy was bred by Luther Burbank. Luther Burbank's Shasta Daisy What is for dinner? How are you doing? What is on your mind. If you are new to Street Prophets please introduce yourself below in a comment. This is an Open Thread / Coffee Hour and all topics of conversation are welcome. Today's Coffee Hour is brought to you by Luther Burbank's Shasta Daisy. his article is continued after the fold. The comments for this article are are after community links and its sub thread. Please limit community links to one per user because we want to encourage greater diversity of submissions of community links from different users. In the case of a needed fundraiser, either the member in need will write a diary or someone will do it on their behalf. That diary is then linked to in the comments. Please only post community links in community links comment provided. Luther Burbank had a great fondness for the wild oxeye daisies that grew under the elm tree in front of his family home. Many years later, the young plant-breeder was inspired to develop these wildflowers for use as garden flowers, and envisioned an ideal daisy: it would have very large pure white flowers, long blooming period, and be good both as a cut flower and garden plant. In order to achieve his goals he used four different plants, creating a quadruple hybrid. He started with the oxeye daisy (Leucanthemum vulgare) and cross-pollinated it with the English field daisy (Leucanthemum maximum) which had larger flowers than the oxeye daisy. The best of these hybrids were then dusted with pollen from the Portuguese field daisy (Leucanthemum lacustre) and their seedlings were bred selectively for six years. These bloomed nicely, but Burbank wasn't satisfied yet. He wanted whiter, brighter flowers. He took the most promising of these triple hybrids and pollinated them with the Japanese field daisy (Nipponanthemum nipponicum), a species with small, pure white flowers. Finally, he got the beautiful large white daisy that he was hoping for. He named it for the lovely glistening Mount Shasta in Northern California. The Shasta daisy hybrids were introduced in 1901 after 17 years in development. From: City of Santa Rosa: Shasta Daisy Luther Burbank (7 March 1849 – 11 April 1926) was an American botanist, horticulturist and a pioneer in agricultural science. He developed more than 800 strains and varieties of plants over his 55-year career. Burbank's varied creations included fruits, flowers, grains, grasses, and vegetables. He developed a spineless cactus (useful for cattle-feed) and the plumcot. From Wikipedia: Luther Burbank Luther Burbank, American horticulturist Burbank's most successful strains and varieties include the Shasta daisy, the fire poppy, the 'July Elberta' peach, the 'Santa Rosa' plum, the 'Flaming Gold' nectarine, the 'Wickson' plum, the freestone peach, and the white blackberry. A natural genetic variant of the Burbank potato with russet-colored skin later became known as the Russet Burbank potato. This large, brown-skinned, white-fleshed potato has become the world's predominant potato in food processing. From Wikipedia: Luther Burbank [END] --- [1] Url: https://www.dailykos.com/stories/2023/8/28/2190148/-Street-Prophets-Coffee-Hour-The-Shasta-Daisy Published and (C) by Daily Kos Content appears here under this condition or license: Site content may be used for any purpose without permission unless otherwise specified. via Magical.Fish Gopher News Feeds: gopher://magical.fish/1/feeds/news/dailykos/