@Eric Group - I'm not at all upset, I just have not had time to look up info, so I could add something meaningful. I "try" to avoid typing about something I don't know anything about,
it is true I rarely can contain myself, so this was a rare exception. Actually this is exactly the sort of puzzle that keeps me interested in something, I'll chew on this off and on, for months or years until I sort it out, as a fun puzzle, not as an irritation. Something I learned from collecting orchids. If you are not sure about the identity of something, hit the reference books and actually read the descriptions of when something was first described, or collected or in azalea's case, hybridized or propagated. I've got Callahan's book. I need to read what it says about Waka Ebisu, just haven't "located it" yet, it is "somewhere in the house". I am not neat and orderly. I wonder which pile of "stuff" it is under? Better yet would be if I could read Japanese, and read the first published description of Waka Ebisu. THAT would be the one that really counts. I know I won't follow through, I don't have the time & resources to do so, but I will try to find Callahan's book.
In the orchid world, there have been cases where seemingly "everyone" was call a species of Paph by one name, where if they had simply read the late 19th century description, it would have been obvious that that name was wrong, and that the correct name was published less than a year later, in the same journal. I mean thousands of people were using the wrong name, photos had been published under the wrong name. We are talking about a species collected from the wild, so the plants did not sprout with name tags.
I could have something that is not Waka Ebisu, but it is sure is pretty, and I would eventually like to be able to label it. Because the multicolored Satsuki are some form of chimera (either genetic DNA chimeras, or epigenetic chimeras in terms of gene expression) it is possible, that through the mass vegetative propagation of Waka Ebisu, some strains may have popped up that lost the chimera traits of the original. Meaning I got one where the chimera traits still exist. OR mine is not right, and indeed what everyone calls Waka Ebisu is the "correct form" and mine is something else. Sorting this out to the 95% confidence level, will take time, and some serious reading. One example of this phenomena is the quince, Toyo Nishiki. It is well known that if you have one branch with solid red flowers, and grow cuttings from it, it will always flower red. Technically this red Toyo Nishiki should have a different name, as it has lost the defining trait of Toyo Nishiki - that being its chimera flowers. Similarly, I know many azaleas that have all the same color flowers came from a similar loss of chimera traits, and these azaleas get different names. But I really can't say anything more about mine, or anyone else's Waka Ebisu, since I haven't read the "official" description and compared. If someone has their books handy, especially if they have more than one reference, it might be helpful to post the "official" description of Waka Ebisu, and see if our flowers match the "official" descriptions.
But my time is short, I'm already over my time limit for typing today.
I'll come back to this at a later date, armed with references, and "official" descriptions, but until then, it is just a curious, fun little puzzle..
