Cactaceae plant

PUBLIC DOMAIN

Patent expired January 24, 1995. This plant is in the public domain — anyone may propagate and sell it.

Twenty years from the filing date would end on January 18, 1997, but this patent ends 725 days earlier — a terminal disclaimer gives term back. A source that calculates twenty years from filing would tell you this plant is still protected when it is already free.

The record

Patent number

PP4196

Filed

January 18, 1977

Granted

January 24, 1978

Expires

January 24, 1995

Assignee

B L COBIA INC

Inventor

COBIA BARNELL L; GRIFFITH STEPHEN H

No cultivar name of record

This patent does not name the plant, and for its era that is ordinary rather than an omission. Before about 1980, breeders frequently patented a plant without giving it a cultivar name at all — the grant identified it by its number, its parentage and a written description of the flower and foliage. Most plant patents from the 1930s to the 1970s have no name in them.

Nothing here is missing from our records: the patent itself states no name. Where one exists we show it, and we do not invent one.

Abstract

A new and distinct hybrid plant variety of the Cactaceae family is related to the Zygocactus truncatus `Kris Kringle` and Zygocactus truncatus `Lavender Doll` varieties and is principally distinguished by a growth habit which combines characteristics that include a natural tendency to branch without inducement by pruning during the growth period, a fast growth rate with resistances to nutrient deficiencies and fungus type diseases that are comparable to those of the `Kris Kringle` and `Lavender Doll` varieties, a resistance to flower bud abscission that is comparable to those of the `Kris Kringle` and `Lavender Doll` varieties and a flower that blooms earlier than that of the `Lavender Doll` variety and has a bloom life of from about 6 to about 9 days, a pistil with a style that is translucent white at its proximal end and in color at its distal end is dominated by purplish red and/or reddish purple hues and with a stigma which is translucent white, and tepals which have marginal blade areas that in color are dominated by purplish red and/or reddish purple hues and which include a sepaloid series of free tepals with inner whorl members having basal areas that in color are dominated by a purplish pink hue, a perianth tube forming series of basally united tepals that form a translucent white vestigal carina at the throat of the tube, and a series of tube laminating tepals which usually number from 5 to 7 in the bloom.

Show the legal claimThe single numbered claim as granted — the legal text that defines what this patent covers.

We claim: 1. The new and distinct hybrid plant variety of the Cactaceae family as described and illustrated and which is principally distinguished by a growth habit that combines the following characteristics: 1. A natural tendency to branch during the growth period without the need for inducement by pruning, 2. A fast growth rate which is comparable to the growth rates exhibited by specimens of the `Kris Kringle` and `Lavender Doll` varieties, 3. Resistances to nutrient deficiencies, to fungus type diseases, and to flower bud abscission that are comparable to those exhibited by specimens of the `Kris Kringle` and `Lavender Doll` varieties, and 4. A flower having a bloom life of from about 6 to about 9 days, a pistil with a style that is translucent white at its proximal end, and at its distal end is in color dominated by purplish red and/or reddish purple hues and with a stigma which is translucent white, and tepals which have marginal blade areas that in color are dominated by purplish red and/or reddish purple hues and which include a sepaloid series of free tepals with inner whorl members having basal areas that in color are dominated by a purplish pink hue, a perianth tube forming series of basally united tepals that form a translucent white vestigal carina at the throat of the tube, and a series of tube laminating tepals which usually number from 5 to 7 in the bloom.

Read the full patent: US Plant Patent PP4196 in full — the complete specification, every figure, and the file history.