Patent Grant
PP34292
Botanical designation: Thuja occidentalis.
Cultivar denomination: ‘SMNTOO’.
The Inventor/Applicant and Assignee assert that no publications nor advertisements relating to sales, offers for sale or public distribution occurred more than one year prior to the effective filing date of this application. Any information about the claimed plant would have been obtained from a direct or indirect disclosure from the Inventor/Applicant and/or the Assignee. Inventor/Applicant and Assignee claim a prior art exception under 35 U.S.C. 102(b)(1) for disclosure and/or sales prior to the filing date but less than one year prior to the effective filing date.
The present invention relates to a new and distinct cultivar of Thuja plant, botanically known as Thuja occidentalis, commonly known as American Arborvitae and hereinafter referred to by the name ‘SMNTOO’.
The new Thuja plant is a product of a planned breeding program conducted by the Inventor in Grand Haven, Mich. The objective of the breeding program was to develop new Thuja plants with a upright narrow plant habit and attractive foliage.
The new Thuja plant originated from an open-pollination in 2000 of the Thuja occidentalis ‘Degroot's Spire’, not patented, as the female, or seed parent and an unknown selection of Thuja occidentalis as the male, or pollen, parent. The new Thuja plant was discovered and selected by the Inventor in 2016 as a plant within the progeny of the stated open-pollination in a controlled outdoor nursery environment in Grand Haven, Mich.
Asexual reproduction of the new Thuja plant by softwood stem cuttings in a controlled environment in Grand Haven, Mich. since 2016, has shown that the unique features of this new Thuja plant are stable and reproduced true to type in successive generations.
Plants of the new Thuja have not been observed under all possible combinations of environmental conditions and cultural practices. The phenotype may vary somewhat with variations in environmental conditions such as temperature and light intensity without, however, any variance in genotype.
The following traits have been repeatedly observed and are determined to be the unique characteristics of ‘SMNTOO’. These characteristics in combination distinguish ‘SMNTOO’ as a new and distinct Thuja plant:
Plants of the new Thuja can be compared to plants of the female parent, ‘Degroot's Spire’. Plants of the new Thuja differ primarily from plants of ‘Degroot's Spire’ in the following characteristics:
Plants of the new Thuja can also be compared to plants of Thuja occidentalis, ‘Art Boe’, disclosed in U.S. Plant Pat. No. 22,174. In side-by-side comparisons, plants of the new Thuja differ primarily from plants of ‘Art Boe’ in the following characteristics:
The accompanying colored photographs illustrate the overall appearance of the new Thuja plant showing the colors as true as it is reasonably possible to obtain in colored reproductions of this type. Colors in the photographs may differ slightly from the color values cited in the detailed botanical description which accurately describe the colors of the new Thuja plant.
The photograph on the first sheet (
The photograph on the second sheet (
The aforementioned photographs and following observations, measurements and values describe plants grown in the spring in three-gallon containers in a polypropylene-covered shadehouse in Grand Haven, Mich. and under cultural practices typical of commercial Thuja production. During the production of the plants, day temperatures ranged from 18° C. to 27° C. and night temperatures ranged from 5° C. to 10° C. Plants were three years old when the photographs and the description were taken. In the description, color references are made to The Royal Horticultural Society Colour Chart, 2015 Edition, except where general terms of ordinary dictionary significance are used.
