Hosta 'Echo the Sun' Hybrid Foliage Color and Leaf Shape
Find Innovative SolutionsGenerate Solutions
Solution Overview
Problem
There is a need for a new Hosta cultivar that combines specific traits such as medium-sized, lanceolate leaves with narrowly acute apices and cordate bases, slightly folded with rippled margins, and yellowish to chartreuse coloration, along with white flowers featuring light lavender central lines and pale lavender backs, which are not found in existing cultivars.
Innovation Solution
The development of Hosta 'Echo the Sun', a hybrid resulting from crossing proprietary unreleased hybrids 12-06-01 and 11-304-2, characterized by its unique foliage and floral features, achieved through asexual propagation and shoot tip tissue culture, retaining stability across generations.
Engineering Contradictions & Design Principles
Engineering Contradiction Analysis
1Ease of manufacture
If Hosta cultivars with blue-green leaf blades are used, then foliage color is improved, but leaf shape and margin characteristics are lost
Solution Approach 1:
The patent applies local quality by combining specific traits from different parent plants: the female parent (12-06-01) contributes blue-green foliage color while the male parent (11-304-2) contributes the lanceolate leaf shape with sinuate margins. The resulting cultivar 'Echo the Sun' exhibits both the desirable coloration and the distinctive leaf morphology, resolving the contradiction between color and shape characteristics.
2Volume of moving object
If Hosta cultivars with larger habit and foliage size are used, then plant size is improved, but leaf shape precision and margin sinuosity are reduced
Solution Approach 1:
The patent utilizes parameter changes by selecting specific intermediate-sized leaves (not too large, not too small) with precise dimensional ratios. The leaves of 'Echo the Sun' are described as lanceolate with specific margin sinuosity and apex acuteness, achieving an optimal balance between overall plant size and detailed leaf morphology through controlled hybridization and selection.
3Ease of manufacture
If Hosta cultivars with chartreuse foliage color are used, then summer color is improved, but spring yellow coloration is lost
Solution Approach 1:
The patent applies periodic action by capturing the seasonal color transition pattern in the cultivar's genetics. Hosta 'Echo the Sun' displays yellow foliage in spring that gradually transitions to chartreuse in summer, maintaining both color phases throughout the growing season. This periodic color change is inherited from the parent plants and preserved through asexual propagation.
4Ease of operation
If Hosta cultivars with less sinuate margins are used, then leaf simplicity is improved, but aesthetic complexity and visual interest are reduced
Solution Approach 1:
The patent applies composite materials by combining multiple genetic traits from different parent plants to create a composite leaf structure. The leaves of 'Echo the Sun' integrate the blue-green coloration from the female parent with the sinuate margin pattern from the male parent, resulting in a composite phenotype that exhibits both color complexity and margin intricacy simultaneously.
Data Source
AI summary
A new and distinct Hosta plant named ‘Echo the Sun’ producing medium-sized low mounds of basal lanceolate leaves of yellowish to chartreuse color. The medium-sized leaves have a matte upper surface and glaucous underside. The flowers are white with light lavender centers and pale lavender backs. Flowers are attractively subtended by floral bracts making the whole scape more effective. ‘Echo the Sun’ is useful in the landscape, as a container plant, a specimen or en masse.