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The Story of C. reticulata hybrid "Dr. Clifford Parks"  by Dr. Clifford Parks Hybrid studies
with C. reticulata were not among my major objectives at the Los Angeles
Arboretum, but I did attempt a number of crosses from time to time. In the
1963-64 Camellia season, I made a wide range of crosses involving C. japonica,
C. xwilliamsii and the Kunming C. reticulata cultivars. In late winter of ‘64 I
made crosses using the Kunming cultivars as seed parents. The seeds from these,
and a large number of other, crosses germinated in early 1965. I recall that
some of the crosses with C. reticulata were extremely vigorous. A hybrid
seedling between ‘Cornelian’ and ‘Mrs. D. W. Davis’ was the most vigorous plant
amount the thousands of seedling bred that year. And, I should add that it was
later named ‘LASCA Beauty’ (Los Angeles State and County Arboretum). By the time I was preparing to
move to North Carolina in early 1967, none of these
hybrids had set flower buds. At that time I decided to only take plants to
North Carolina that had cold hardiness potential. I did not consider then
that the reticulata hybrids would have a chance of survival in North Carolina. I had been in contact with
the Mr. David Feathers and the Northern California Research Group. We worked
out an arrangement whereby they would take my tender plants suitable for
California, and record information on each plant as it flowered. When
completed, the information was passed on to me. It was agreed that the Northern
California Research Group would have the right to name and introduce any plant
they found worthy of introduction.
They named two: 80-4,
Crimson Robe X Kramer’s Supreme, is ‘Dr. Clifford Parks’.
79-2,
Chang’s Temple(I believe is changed to ‘Cornelian’) X ‘Mrs. D. W. Davis, is
‘LASCA Beauty’
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