Hacking Plants: The Story of Silicon Valley Camellias

Humans have two sets of chromosomes, just like the flowering shrub Camellia japonica. But another species, Camellia sasanqua, has six, and some of its hybrids have three, four or five. Mutations affecting plant hormones can produce bizarre miniature shrubs with tightly packed leaves, looking like pangolins or knights in armor. Other genetic changes can produce striped flowers or transform stamens into additional petals.

How do scientists reconstruct hybridization events that happened in Japan some 400 years ago? How did pink-flowering curtivars of Camellia sasanqua arise from ancestors that had only white flowers? And can an engineer in Silicon Valley create new varieties of these plants in his backyard?

The presenter, Yuri Panchul, is a Silicon Valley chip design engineer who has been hybridizing the fall-flowering shrub Camellia sasanqua for 25 years. He has registered two cultivated varieties (cultivars), 'Silicon Valley' and 'Sunnyvale Carnival', with several more in development.

In this presentation, Yuri will show his cultivars and explain the science and practice of growing, crossing, selecting, and grafting camellias. He will also discuss how plant genetics, mutations, and hybridization produce new flower shapes, colors, and growth habits.

Some of Yuri's plants can be obtained at Our City Forest Community Nursery in San Jose, where he donates plants.