ISI 2026-27 Puya 'Blue Ghost'

 ISI 2026-27. Puya 'Blue Ghost' J.Trager.

In 2015, we offered Puya gilmartinii G.S. Varad & A.R. Flores ISI 2015-39, a critically endangered Chilean species that lives in a restricted area of coastal Chile that is under pressure from development. In March 2018, we planted several in the lower Desert Garden. They thrived in our comparable climate, and we eagerly awaited their first flowering. In June of 2023, the first of these produced an inflorescence and we anticipated the yellow to chartreuse flowers described and illustrated for the species. When the first flowers opened a few days later, I was puzzled by the flower color, which was not at all what was expected but, rather, a pale, ghostly blue like that of some of the highly sought after high-Andean species. None of the other plants in the garden flowered that year nor have they since then. Following flowering, I checked for seeds in case the plant was self-fertile, but no capsules developed. The question was whether this was an unusual color variant of P. gilmartinii or a hybrid with the sympatric P. alpestris subsp. zoellneri Zizka, J.V.Schneid & Novoa which has emerald-green flowers. Every child painter learns that blue mixed with yellow makes green but was it possible that a yellow-flowered Puya crossed with a green-flowered one makes blue? This appears to be the case but will await DNA analysis someday to confirm. In the meantime, the year after flowering, the plant produced several branches from around the base of the old inflorescence. One was somewhat painfully extracted and initiated into tissue culture. It multiplied rapidly, affording this introduction. We offer rooted explants of HBG 145788, an apparent natural hybrid of P. gilmartinii x P. alpestris subsp. zoellneri from seed collected December 2006 from P. gilmartinii by Rachel Schmidt-Jabaily (RSJ 169) while studying the genus for her doctoral work, N of La Serena, Coquimbo Region, Elqui Province, Chile.