Sinningia 'Peninsula Belle'

Sinningia 'Peninsula Belle' (S. lineata x reitzii) bears light purple flowers over a long blooming season. Like its reitzii parent, it can get to be a small shrub.

Sinningia 'Peninsula Belle' is one of my first hybrids. I made it back in the early 1980s, not long after I started growing sinningias. It is S. lineata x reitzii. I got the reitzii (then known as Sinningia "New Zealand") from the late Addison Campbell. The lineata I grew from AGGS Seed Fund seed (the seed was under the name S. macropoda). So from two misnamed plants I got a plant I have grown ever since, and eventually named and registered (my first).

Sinningia lineata has orange-red flowers with narrow tubes and slightly flaring lobes. Sinningia reitzii has dark red flowers with narrow tubes and slightly flaring lobes. So Sinningia 'Peninsula Belle' has magenta flowers with a wider tube and lobes flaring widely to create an almost flat face. Hybridizing is so predictable.

Further hybridization

I have done crosses using S. 'Peninsula Belle' as a parent. See this page for pictures and a discussion.

Interesting flowers resulted from

Crosses with Sinningia piresiana.
Crosses with Sinningia conspicua.
Crosses with Dale Martens's hybrid S. 'Texas Zebra'.

Feature table for Sinningia 'Peninsula Belle'

Plant Description
Growth	Indeterminate
Habit	Stems upright, losing the lower leaves with age.
Leaves	Heart-shaped, dark green on top. Reverse is dark red in low light, green or red-tinged in higher light.
Dormancy	Stems persistent even in winter, bases not deciduous even when stem is chopped
Flowering
Inflorescence	axillary cymes, several to many flowers per axil.
Flowering	Late summer through late autumn
Flower	Purple-magenta, tubular with flaring lobes, dark streaks on narrow white stripe along bottom of corolla tube. See a comparison with other sinningia flowers.
Horticultural aspects
Hardiness	Tubers have survived 26 F (-3 C) in my back yard.
Recommended?	Yes. Blooms for several months in the autumn and early winter.
Hybridization
Hybridizer	Alan LaVergne, approx. 1980
Fertility	The hybrid is fertile. I have done numerous crosses with it.
Botany
Taxonomic group	It is a cross between two species in the Dircaea clade.