Patent Grant
PP35894
Latin name of the genus and species of the plant claimed: Vaccinium ovatum.
Variety denomination: ‘Cascade Jewel’.
The present application relates to a new and distinct ornamental variety of Vaccinium ovatum named ‘Cascade Jewel’. ‘Cascade Jewel’ is a tetraploid selection of Vaccinium ovatum with a DNA content of 2.52 pg. In comparison, diploid seedlings have a mean DNA content of 1.22 pg. Tetraploidy was induced by chemical treatment of seed (as described in Neill and Contreras, HortScience, 57(2), 312-318, 2022) collected from an unpatented seedling of unknown parentage growing in a cultivated area in Corvallis, Oregon in 2012-2013. ‘Cascade Jewel’ was among a group of diploids, mixoploids (cytochimeras), and tetraploids, that were evaluated between 2014-2020. ‘Cascade Jewel’, which was originally accessioned and tested as 12-0018-124, was selected as superior in 2017 due to its growth habit. It has continued to stand out as being vigorous and more amenable to commercial nursery production than other genotypes of all cytotypes. It has performed well in micropropagation and production trials, and is superior to wild-type plants due to its compact, but upright and densely branched growth habit and vigor.
Plants of the new Vaccinium ovatum have not been observed under all possible combinations of environmental conditions and cultural practices. However, the following traits have been consistently observed and are a unique combination of characteristics for ‘Cascade Jewel’:
Diploid seedlings evaluated at the same time had an average height and width of 44 cm×53 cm compared to 28 cm×41 cm for ‘Cascade Jewel’ during the 2017-2018 growing season, thus ‘Cascade Jewel’ is at least more compact than diploids when immature, however, diploids were not maintained to determine whether ‘Cascade Jewel’ remains more compact at maturity.
Asexual reproduction of this new variety by vegetative cuttings and micropropagation shows that the foregoing characteristics come true to form, are firmly fixed, and are established and transmitted through succeeding propagations.
Certain characteristics of this variety may change with changing environmental conditions (such as photoperiod, temperature, moisture, soil conditions, nutrient availability, or other factors). Thus, the phenotype may vary somewhat with variations in environmental conditions without any variance in genotype, including ploidy level. Color designations (hue/value/chroma) are made with reference to The Royal Horticultural Society Colour Chart (R.H.S.) 6th edition, 2015.
The color photographs show typical specimens of the new variety and depict the color as nearly true as is reasonably possible to make the same in a color illustration of this character. It should be noted that colors may vary, for example due to lighting conditions at the time the photograph is taken. Therefore, color characteristics of this new variety should be determined with reference to the observations described herein, rather than from the photograph alone.
The following is a detailed description while observing mature plants propagated from stem cuttings. Such plants ranged between two and five years of age and were found to have consistent morphology, apart from size (younger plants are smaller). Plants were propagated in protected environments then grown outdoors in partial shade in Corvallis, Oregon, USA. Flowering data was collected in late February, 2023, on plants that were induced to flower in a glasshouse.
