Understanding how to read hybrid crosses.

[Nanthawat]

So I am trying to understand how to read hybrid crosses.
Let's pretend we have a...

N. Maxima x Rajah

Which one would be the female and which male? And from my understanding, the plant will look a tad more like one of the parent's form?

Thank you.

 

[Not a Number]

The convention is that the species after the cross (multipication) symbol is the pollen parent/donor which in the case of Nepenthes would be male. In your example N. rajah would be the male. However with natural hybrids it is next to impossible to know which species contributed the pollen.

http://www.terraforums.com/forums/s...-pollinating?p=1123351&viewfull=1#post1123351

 

[Whimgrinder]

The convention is that the species after the cross (multipication) symbol is the pollen parent/donor which in the case of Nepenthes would be male.

http://www.terraforums.com/forums/s...-pollinating?p=1123351&viewfull=1#post1123351

And just so you are doing it right (I'm sure you want to write botanical names correctly), genus names are capitalized, but the species is lower case. It is also considered proper to italicize a species name when writing about it in discussion (or in print). So, your cross listed about would most properly be written:

Nepenthes maxima X rajah, or N. maxima X rajah -- both are correct.

 

[mcmcnair]

the first plant listed in the hybrid is the mother plant (not necessarily a female when talking about hybrid plants as a whole, not just Nepenthes) and the second plant listed is the father plant (again, not necessarily male, just the pollen donor). As to which parent it looks more like that is entirely up to chance. This does a pretty good job explaining the very basics http://anthro.palomar.edu/mendel/mendel_2.htm

It is much more complicated than that but that is a good place to start. Hope that helped!

 

[Not a Number]

And just so you are doing it right (I'm sure you want to write botanical names correctly), genus names are capitalized, but the species is lower case. It is also considered proper to italicize a species name when writing about it in discussion (or in print). So, your cross listed about would most properly be written:

Nepenthes maxima X rajah, or N. maxima X rajah -- both are correct.

And Nepenthes maxima × Nepenthes rajah or Nepenthes maxima × N. rajah are equally correct.

http://apps.rhs.org.uk/rhsplantfinder/plantnaming/hownameswork.asp
http://www.pinguicula.org/pages/divers/correctly_writing_plant_names.htm
http://www.terraforums.com/forums/showthread.php/106333-Writing-plant-names

 

[Nanthawat]

Thank you all for answering

 

[Dexenthes]

It can get even more complicated when complex hybrids are concerned. Parenthesis help distinguish where the actual parents of the species start and end.

For instance N. (rajah x maxima) x maxima

The father plant in this cross would be N. maxima. The mother would be N. rajah x maxima.

The more complex the hybrid the more important it is to keep track of where the "N's" are located.