S. purpurea ssp. venosa Brunswick Beauty Brunswick Co, NC

[meizzwang]

I had the original brunswick beauty clone close to 2 decades ago, and of course, lost it in 2014 when I moved and lost most of my purpureas. In the past few years, a clone circulating with the name brunswick beauty has shown up, and I'm fairly confident that it's not the original clone, but because it has almost exactly the same characteristics as the original clone, I'm going to keep the name as is. Like hurricane creek white, I believe there are many different clones from Brunswick Co, NC that look so similar that they could easily be passed off as brunswick beauty.

For those of you who had a chance to grow the original clone, it was very slow growing, difficult to keep alive, but had both the shape and color to go goo-goo ga-ga over! I ended up crossing the original brunswick beauty with a venosa that I acquired as a kid from woolworth nursery in the early 1990's, and came up with a batch of plants that all looked like brunswick beauty, except they were vigorous and not super prone to dying! Here's a pic from a very long time ago:


These seedlings were heavenly and widely distributed to many growers in the US:


I ended up selling all but maybe 4 of those plants, and around 2016, some raccoons picked up the pots and carried them into the forest. By the time I found them, they were all dried up and dead!

Fast forward to 2021, I acquired a very nice division from Jeremiah Harris of the new clone that is circulating as Brunswick Beauty! I'm still having a tough time acclimating it from greenhouse to outdoor conditions, but I think this fall it will look really nice. It's way more vigorous than the original clone, that alone indicates it's genetically different. It also has a slightly different shape to it. Here is, pics taken early June 2022:





Now: I haven't been given permission to say names, so I'm going to leave it out of this conversation, but one of my customers said he had a really amazing purpurea venosa called big fib! I ended up trading it with him, and then after tracing it's origins, it was linked to a grower by the name of Jonathan Kui. I hit up Jonathan and he verified that the plant came from me, it was in fact a purpurea venosa (brunswick beauty x venosa) that I sold to him in 2008!!! Here it is, very well grown by my customer, and it looks EXACTLY like the original brunswick Beauty clone, except of course it's super vigorous and is way easier to grow:


Will keep you all posted, hopefully this fall there will be some updated pics to share!

[meizzwang]

some updated pics of Brunswick Beauty, taken 8/10/22. It hasn't grown much, but if it does grow, it'll probably double in size in the next month. In my climate, purpureas do almost nothing all season long, but come fall, they put on impressive amounts of growth

[romainvalais]

Very interesting!

[meizzwang]

Brunswick Beauty really got dark during the winter dormancy period, probably because of a lot of sunny days and tons of cold nights. Pics taken 12/5/22 under very crappy lighting, but you can still sorta tell it's dark!

[meizzwang]

couple more shots of this clone in better lighting, pics taken 12/18/22:

[meizzwang]

some updated photos, only was able to make a few divisions this past winter but I think this coming winter, more can be taken. It took quite some time to get this plant established when I first acquired it a few years ago, but once it gets good growth momentum, this thing grows quite well! photos from 9/15/23:

[voodoochild]

Jun 24, 2022 18:10:24 GMT -5 meizzwang said:

Now: I haven't been given permission to say names, so I'm going to leave it out of this conversation,

You never asked me. My name is Mike Barnard, and I live in eastern North Carolina, about 100 miles / 161 kilometers north of Brunswick County.

Jun 24, 2022 18:10:24 GMT -5 meizzwang said:

but one of my customers said he had a really amazing purpurea venosa called big fib! I ended up trading it with him, and then after tracing it's origins, it was linked to a grower by the name of Jonathan Kui. I hit up Jonathan and he verified that the plant came from me, it was in fact a purpurea venosa (brunswick beauty x venosa) that I sold to him in 2008!!!

'Big Fib' is a fantastic purpurea! Hardy, vigorous, colorful, just eats up the heat and humidity in the summer. Here's a current pic of my division, now in an 8-inch / 20-centimeter pot:



I'm glad that I could help reestablish this bloodline in your collection.