Hybrid Heuchera

Family bromeliads. Breeders have succeeded in producing interspecific hybrids by crossing the blood-red Heuchera with the American Heuchera.

The hybrid plants more closely resemble the blood-red Heuchera, but differ from it by having larger leaves, flowers and flower stalks. The flower coloration is as bright as that of the blood-red Heuchera, in various shades of the white-red range, but they are borne on much more branched and loose flower stalks. Because there are usually many flower stalks, the flowering of the shaker-like Heuchera lasts about two months. However, these hybrids have a drawback — the graceful tall flower stalks with a large number of flowers often bend or break in the wind.

More complex hybrids, obtained from crossing the American Heuchera with the small-flowered Heuchera with the participation of other species, such as, for example, the Heuchera hairy (Н. villosa), have formed the group of the so-called American hybrids (Н. х ameriсаnа). These hybrids are distinguished by foliage whose beauty is often difficult to describe. Leaf shape varies. The tips of the lobes, numbering from 5 to 9, can be blunt, as in the American Heuchera, pointed, as in the small-flowered Heuchera, or have an intermediate form. In many cultivars the leaf blade is strongly wavy at the edge. The leaf coloration, which defines the cultivar, includes all shades of dark purple, deep violet and brown. The surface of the leaf blade may be evenly colored in one of these tones, or it may represent their combination, complemented by dark green and. silver-gray. In terms of leaf beauty the plants are comparable to the magnificent ornamental-leaved begonias, which in our latitudes do not survive the winter in the ground. Flowering in plants of this group in most cases resembles that of the small-flowered Heuchera. The lacy quality and elegance of the flowering of these Heucheras complement the beauty of the picturesque foliage.