u/Mortal_Mantis

Just felt like drawing, and then thought of this guy. lol

I had catchflies or campion (Silene noctiflora) growing in my garden for years, since I love how year round they keep flowering. The bees also seem to love them, and I like that about them too. Last year, I noticed dozens of seedlings with variegated leaves popping up out of the ground. With a few mature plants showing the same variegation, and it clicked I had struck gold (variegation, lol).

What's unfortunate, is that my catchflies are a species that have male plants and female plants. The fortunate side of this coin, is that a handful of plants both male and female had expressed variegation. And these individuals I had my eyes on.

I saved hundreds of seeds from one of my variegated plants, and these are some pics of her variegated offspring growing alongside their normal siblings who should be carriers of the trait as well.

For context, I was searching for a variegated pea seedling (Pisum sativum) by growing out large numbers of seedlings in trays until one shown promise. When I first noticed the light green/yellow streaks, it had the first two sets of leaves. I waited a week to see if the new growth also had the variegation, and those leaves did. It's not super eye-catching, but it's good enough considering the sheer amount of seedlings I've sorted through over the last year.

What inspired me to do this is seeing some specimens online with variegated leaves, and the apparent difficulty in keeping variegated peas alive. With accounts of pests eating them, sunburn, etc. I personally would have liked to get a few seeds from charitable individuals, but as stated before, these plants tend to expire before doing so. Making my effort to brute force obtaining one the best avenue I can think of.

So far, this little guy is doing fine in a sunny windowsill. And has been growing at a normal rate, no apparent issues have arisen. If all goes to plan, I should get some seeds just over a month from now. And then I can plant a portion of those seeds to see if it's heritable, and get more stock to work with if it is.