Cross Compatibility of Three Illicium Species

Illicium is an evergreen shrub with wide adaptation of soil types and shade tolerance. To increase its diversity, three species, Illicium floridanum Ellis (F), Illicium lanceolatum A.C. Smith (L), and Illicium mexicanum Ellis (M), and three cultivars (‘Alba’ (A), ‘Pebblebrook (B)’, and ‘Pink Frost’(P)) were cross-pollinated for selecting new clones with better performance and adaptation. A total of 10 successful crosses were recorded and fruit sets were from 25% (“L x M”, “B x P”, and “B x M”) to 66.7% (“P x M” and “M x P”). Nine out of 10 crosses produced one mature fruits and “M x P” had two. The number of seeds ranged from 2-12 per fruit. Both the highest and lowest numbers of seeds per fruit were from the “M x L” cross. Pollen collected from I. floridanum ‘Alba’ was dusted with five other taxa and two mature fruits with 23 seeds were harvested only from “M x A” cross. Reciprocal crossed between “M” and “L” had much higher fruit and seed sets that that of “F” and “L”, which led to the conclusion that I. lanceolatum was much more compatible with I mexicanum than I. floridanum. At the cultivar level, dwarf ‘Pebblebrook’ was much compatible with ‘Pink Frost’ and we were not able to cross it with ‘Alba’. All harvested seeds were be sowed after 3 month cold stratification. Further hybridization of Illicium should include many more species and their cultivars.