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Virus and Variegation
Growing conditions, pH and lack of certain minerals can cause an apparent variegation. This can be corrected and many of the common garden books give information on how to identify the problem. Virus can cause it as well and there isn't much you can do but destroy the plant. You might want to try tip cutting since sometimes the plant grows faster than the virus and it may not have entered the growing tip of a plant. Most variegation is a survival technique. Many of our most common variegated plants come from the lower levels in the Amazon rainforest where light levels are low and take advantage of variegation in an ongoing war against insects. For example, the well-known "Prayer Plant" has dark lines going out to small spots on lighter background. This gives the impression of a long flexible stem with tiny leaves at the end making it less attractive to insects. Some develop holes in leaves to give the appearance of other insects eating and have already eaten on it. Some colours aren't easily seen, particularly under these conditions, by insects so they get the impression of a leaf already mostly consumed. Wouldn't it be surprised to find that, as with some butterflies, some are more noticeable to let insects know they aren't the ones they would want to eat.

Many cane begonias have spots on them that I've wondered if they are meant to give the impres-sion of mildew or fungus. Coleus, caladiums, begonias, and many other beautiful variegated foliage plants seem to have variegation primarily as help toward survival of species in the wild. It also them more attractive to us so it acts as a survival factor in their spread as houseplants. So when it appears as with African Violets we propagate it and make it into a survival characteristic.

Often it is passed on through female parents as with Tommie Lou variegation. Not always true and it seems that it may be crossing over and now occasionally appears in plants which do not have a variegated mother plant. Maybe heredity is making it a more common mutation because it is so widely spread in the ancestry of many plants. An example of crossover would be found in snakeskin guppies. Normally this is passed on by the male parent so the female is selected from other strains for other characteristics in breeding show fish. There was one woman who raised them where it was reversed — it was passed on by a female so this procedure was reversed.

Variegation does sometimes weaken plants by providing less chlorophyll but in a lot of plants it doesn't make any difference. [From: "cwalk" [email protected] (Gesneriphiles)]

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Created on 12th March 1999.