- Breeder
- Mike Wang
- First described
- 2024
- Type
- single clone from selective breeding program
- Cultivar
- 'peculiar shape'
Origin
Mike's third-generation (F3) selectively-bred leucophylla alba. Outcrossed throughout — not selfed — because Mike's breeding philosophy explicitly avoids the inbreeding depression that selfing would impose. The seed batch this clone was selected from was, in Mike's words, "all over the place" — a reminder that outcrossing yields high variance and only a fraction of seedlings produce publishable albas.
Why this clone matters
Most named albas are wild-collected individuals, vanishingly rare in nature, expressed only under tight environmental conditions. Mike's project: lock in the alba trait so that by F6/F7, plants color up under a wider range of conditions. 'peculiar shape' is a checkpoint — not the endpoint — of that program.
Cultivation notes
The trio Mike calls out for getting albas to express:
- Full sun.
- Leave undisturbed at the root.
- Grew well the prior year — vigor stored from the previous season carries forward.
Standout traits
- Whitens up well outdoors in Northern California — pure white traps with minimal veining when growing conditions are right.
- F3 of Mike's outcross-selective alba breeding program.
- Color expression is environment-dependent: needs full sun, undisturbed root system, prior-season vigor.
Cultivation
Mike's framework for albas: environment plays an enormous role in whether a clone "whites up all the way." Three things to set up: full sun, leave undisturbed, grow well the previous year. Mike's long-game projection — by F6 or F7 of selective alba breeding, expect to lock in the alba trait so it expresses even under less-than-ideal conditions.
Mike's strategic note: outcross (not self) when breeding for albas. Selfing can produce striking individuals but at the cost of inbreeding depression — lower vigor, increased disease susceptibility, won't survive distribution.
Photos (3)
Naming
Mike: "I really don't know why I called it that but I guess I'm running out of names for these really white ones." Descriptive rather than narrative.